The View From Langley
by Antonia Caenis
Summary: The events of series 10 seen from the perspective of Jim Coaver. Inspired by wondering what exactly he had on that laptop. Kudos own what is theirs, the rest is my own.
1. Chapter 1

**1. London, Late May 2011.**

"_Christ, Hal, now you've really got me worried," _I thought as I watched my old friend stride away through the silver-bright rain. _"What the Hell was that about?" _We had known each other for over 30 years at this point, through the incredible highs and lows of both the job and our personal lives and had seen each other in almost every mood imaginable but I had never, ever seen, or thought I would see, Harry Pearce driven by what seemed to be a mix of panic and paranoia. As for his ultimatum, well I'd be lying if I said I wasn't chilled to the core. I've seen him pull that act before, plenty of times, but hadn't been on the receiving end. Now I realised why it had always been so effective: it _wasn't_ an act. We each know perfectly well exactly what the other is capable of and I knew, in that instant, that he really would take on not only me personally but my entire organisation. In his current mood, we would be the ones who would come off second-best.

I'd had a bad feeling in my bones about all of this ever since the name Elena Gavrik had come out during our conversation in the pub that day and now it looked as though I'd been right. She always had been bad news and I hadn't expected this time to be any different but I also hadn't expected her to be able to have this this much of an effect on Harry after so long – it had been a quarter of a century, for Christ's sake. That she was behind what was going on I had no doubt but I was really going to have to go through all those files again, today, to see if I could work out why, although I was starting to have a fairly strong inkling about that.

What had hurt the most, though, was the direct, unequivocal accusation that I had been behind the death of his young techie. I could shrug off the inference that I had something to do with the failed hits on the Gavriks – if positions were reversed I would be thinking the same thing about him – but that he would even consider that I would take the life of one of his crew was devastating and spoke volumes for how twisted his thinking had become.

As I watched his figure dwindle and disappear through the pillared portico at the far end of the courtyard I thought about how tightly he seemed to be wound up – so tightly he was about to snap – and that was a prospect I viewed extremely bleakly. There weren't too many of us old-timers left active in the Service, with most of our compatriots either retired, long-since escaped to real life, gone crazy or, too often, dead. As a result, those of us remaining tended to think we were immune to everything, being both bullet-proof and unbreakable, and Harry had always been one of the most unbreakable of all. And, speaking of breaking, seeing him in his present state was doing exactly that to my damned heart – the one my two ex's say I don't have – and I really didn't want to have to watch what was coming but it looked like I'd left it too late to avoid. That he, of all people – Jesus, we'd been as close as brothers at times in Berlin and the affection had remained ever since – seemed to be on that irreversible down-hill ride to God-know what was devastating. Maybe I'd been stupid to think we might both actually make it, reasonably unscathed, to an honourable retirement…

For me, of course, it had all begun with that telephone call from the boss.


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Langley, Mclean, Virginia, April 2011**

It had been such a lovely day, the first decent one of Spring, with wide blue skies, gentle golden sunshine and a soft breeze: all the clichés you could come up with, including twittering birds, butterflies and green buds busting out all over. It was so perfect that Gianna had been tempted outside for an early morning jog for the first time in weeks, heading out with our bundled-up six year old, Ravenna, keeping up the pace on her bike, as I left for work. After kissing both of my dark haired beauties and watching them disappear down the road towards the park I had made my own way to the office, expecting the normal morning battle with the traffic, but it seemed that the weather was having a beneficial effect on the roads as well, with fewer vehicles and a smooth run. The rest of the morning had followed suit, which should have been a warning, I suppose. Then the phone rang. I barely had time for a "Good morning, Ma'am," before she launched into a summary of the latest bit of news out of the United Kingdom. It seemed my long-held suspicions about an unhealthily close relationship developing between London and Moscow were true: the whispers had turned into a shout and the information we had just received, confirmed by some assets inside Russia, said that it was all about to become official with some bilateral partnership deal due to be signed in the very near future, no doubt with much fanfare on the day itself and much smoke-and-mirrors covering up beforehand. The boss said _her_ bosses weren't happy, which meant that, in all probability, both Obama and Clinton had been in her ear about it. Uncle Sam was feeling jilted and something had to be done about it. And she wanted to know what I thought about it all.

"Is there anything in this, Jim, or is it all a lot of panic over nothing? You know how the Brits will react if we've got this right and try to influence them, let alone if we haven't and do the same thing."

Oh, I knew, alright! We were more like squabbling siblings than friends most of the time, with all that implied, including the sniping and back-biting. Swinging away from the view through the window to consider the wood grain in my desk top I reassured her, trying my best to keep the satisfaction out of my voice.

"No, Ma'am, I've been arguing for a long time we need to do something – decisive – about this situation."

The voice at the other end was silent for a moment, then I heard a sigh.

"I know. I've just been reluctant to believe what you've been telling me. They've been a loyal friend to us for so long that it's hard to believe they're even contemplating jumping into bed with the damned Russkies, let alone at this sort of level."

She had a lot of personal friends in high places in the United Kingdom and had been choosing to disbelieve what we had been seeing as a result, I knew that. However, I had friends over there as well but I also had a more realistic view of their politics so had been less reluctant to believe it. I hadn't been happy when I first cottoned on to what was happening, hence my endless warnings, but I also realised we were unlikely to be able to do much to stop it if we didn't act early. And we hadn't, so now here we were… Responding as gently as I could I stared over at my plate-glass doors, although wasn't focussing on them, and pointed out the obvious.

"Britain _has_ been our loyal friend but we can't let sentimentality stay our hand. Not when action so clearly needs to be taken."

Another sigh came down the line and I could just about see the frown on her face and hear the cogs whirring in her brain as she slowly came to admitting the truth to herself.

"You're right. I should have listened to you months ago. Are you willing to take this on for me, Jim? I know it's not really your area any more but you are by far the best person we've got to go hunting around and find out what all of this is about and work out what, if anything, we can do about it."

I'd had a feeling from the start of the conversation that this request was coming. Was I willing? Well, yes, although it didn't exactly inspire me, having to drop everything and run off chasing a wild goose who not only didn't want to be caught but had left the starting blocks way before us. Unable to restrain a quiet sigh I nonetheless kept my voice neutral.

"Absolutely. I will be on the next flight to London."

"Thank you. I don't know what we'd do without you, sometimes. Keep me posted." She clearly still wasn't happy but she was a realist and recognised expediency when she saw it.

"Thank you, Ma'am."

I dropped the hand-piece back into its cradle and stared out through the glass doors of my office, not seeing the controlled chaos on the floor outside as I considered my plans. I would slip into London tonight and try to stay out of view for a while to see what I could find out. I knew my presence wouldn't stay under Harry's radar for very long but I could make every minute of it count before he found me out. It would be good to catch up with him again, though, it had been longer than either of us would have liked since we had actually seen each other last.

There was no sense of foreboding about this trip as I started to search for a likely flight. Well, no sense of foreboding apart from what Gianna's reaction would be when I told her! I'd mollify that, though, by getting her over for a short break after the job was done: the thought of a few days burning the credit cards in London was usually enough to get around any of her objections.

None of us had the slightest idea of the disaster that was about to befall all of us.


	3. Chapter 3

**3. London, early May 2011.**

I managed to stay undiscovered for almost three weeks, helped in no small part by the royal wedding. In the lead-up to that all of the British security services were, understandably, too busy to worry about another CIA employee slipping into town, even if it was a Deputy Director with a long history of delving into Russian affairs, so I could start digging around in peace. For all that, I didn't get very far. There were plenty of rumours doing the rounds, each one as contradictory as the next, but no-one had anything concrete. On the day of the wedding itself I, like everyone else, ended up watching it, in my case on the TV in my hotel room, because there was absolutely nothing else to do, although I did go out afterwards to join the crowds and get some of the atmosphere, even managing to catch a glimpse of the happy couple as they drove Charles' Lotus down The Mall. You have to give it to the Brits, they _really_ know how to do this pomp and circumstance thing! It all went off without a hitch although Gian and my eldest, Paige, were seriously ticked off that I was here and they weren't, something I didn't hear the end of for a few days, until the news broke about Bin Laden, giving everyone something else to talk about. That brought me another few days, then the inevitable finally happened and I got an text that was as much an order as an invitation.

I got to the pub first. It was one of those traditional old places, all mullioned windows, tiled floors, timber and brass fittings, that would normally draw in the tourists like flies to a carcass but, at this hour of the morning, it was only lightly populated, for which I was grateful. Picking up a mineral water to nurse while I waited, I silently reviewed what I had learned over the past few weeks. That didn't take long when it came to the rumoured deal: that was still all whispers on the wind about a bilateral trade agreement with final negotiations and signing-off due to happen any day. A Russian-registered private jet, masquerading as a diplomatic flight, had been noted arriving at RAF Brize Norton not long since but no-one knew who the passengers had been, and at about the same time FSB activity around town had increased, as had the number of personnel they had stationed at their office. The office that wasn't supposed to exist, that would be. To be honest, I wasn't overly worried: if it was only a trade deal, and there had been absolutely no rumours of it being anything else, then there probably wasn't too much to be concerned about, it would only be making official what was already happening anyway, whether Washington liked it or not. And it wasn't like the same thing wasn't happening between businesses in Russia and the US… It looked like being a storm in a very British tea-cup.

The other stuff I had learned had related to my old Berlin buddy. The news had swept through the international intelligence community like a wild-fire a couple of months ago, of course: the legendary Harry Pearce, fearsome head of counter-intelligence for MI5, being stood down pending an enquiry was always going to get the gossips going but after the initial flare-up there had been nothing but speculation. As ever, the spooks in this country had kept their mouths tightly shut when it came to one of their own but since arriving here I'd heard various rumours, many of them revolving around the word "treason" mixed in with China, a subordinate going bad and a woman. Now, I've known the man for over thirty years, since we first met in Cologne in 1980, and no matter how much of a maverick he was (and still is) I knew damned well that he would _never_ betray his country. Ever. He might burn assets, manipulate his colleagues and friends as required and cheat on his wife (although, to be fair, he had taken that lesson particularly to heart, albeit too late, after Jane took the kids and walked out) but treason was one line in the sand that he would die for rather than cross, whether a personal relationship was involved or not. So if what he had done looked like treason I would guarantee, one-hundred percent, that it wasn't: there would be something else behind it that explained it all. As I'm sure this witch-hunt of an enquiry would find out. I had no illusions on what the real score was on that front: both he and I had made a lot of powerful enemies over our time in the service and somehow he had inadvertently given his an opportunity to bring him down. Well, if I knew old Hal, they would be the ones to ultimately fail.

While I was thinking of the Devil he walked into the bar. I spotted him, looking dour, through the large windows and the grin started as he came through the door, answered by his familiar sunny smile once he saw me from across the room. Slightly conspiratorial, as ever: Christ, I'd lost count long since of the number of times we'd met up in bars in Berlin, London (especially while I'd been stationed here for those years during the 1990s – no girl in this city had been safe from us over that period!) and Washington prior to going out and getting up to no good, either on a private or professional front! Every time it was like this, though – goofy grins and laughter bubbling up as we remembered the most scurrilous of our escapades – and this occasion was no different. I felt my grin get bigger as he approached and got the corresponding twinkle out of his eyes; getting in first, I gave our ancient and revered traditional greeting.

"You feeling too British for a hug?"

"Too American for a hand-shake?" he countered, quick as a flash, and we both laughed before shaking hands and then exchanging a brief hug. For someone who comes across as very stiff, formal and extremely English on first meeting, to say nothing of how his reputation terrifies lesser mortals, he is actually a very warm and loyal person if he decides to accept you as a friend and the warmth was there that day as he added a gently facetious, "My goodness. Diplomacy in action!"

We stood back and inspected each other for a moment, searching for whatever ravages time and tide might have left on each other over the past few years. For someone of our age who wouldn't be seen dead within a country mile of a gym or anything else resembling a fitness centre, Harry was still in reasonable condition and appeared essentially unchanged, albeit older. He had put on a little weight since we had last actually seen each other, but then so had I before I lost it again trying to keep up with both my wife's fitness routine and a young daughter, and he was _finally_ starting to go grey but I wasn't about to call him on that, not when I'd been completely grey for years. I still had more hair than him, though! He broke the train of my thoughts with a quiet, genuine,

"You look well, Jim."

"Well, younger wife… Gian is thirty-nine. I see her talking to guys her own age, next thing you know I'm on something called an elliptical trainer!" A mildly horrified expression crossed his familiar features and we both laughed again at the things we men sometimes do for the sake of our ladies. "Now I know it's early but I'm damned if I'm going to toast our reunion with pub coffee." I glanced across to get the bar-tender's attention and asked a question to which I already knew the answer. "Single malt?"

"With water." Sending one of his innocent expressions my direction he added, "As a concession to the youth of the hour."

Oh man, his sense of humour was still intact! I couldn't help another broad grin splitting my face as I laughed and shook my head at him, admitting,

"I've missed that shit!" No-one else I'd ever met had quite the turn of phrase and perfect delivery that he did – it was one of the great pleasures of sharing a casual conversation in a bar with him. Turning to the barman I added, "And a vodka and tonic, on the tab," before downing the last of the mineral water. I didn't miss the expression on his face as I did so, though: measured, calculating and something else that might have been tension. Not a mix that usually occurred between us, apart from after one certain incident in Berlin in 1984 which had left us avoiding each other for months, until we had both simmered down and circumstances had forced us together again. After a couple of good drinking sessions in some of the sleazier dives of that city we had regained an even keel and it had been that way ever since. He eventually said, quietly but with that unidentified note also present in his voice now,

"So, I was surprised to hear you were in London."

I carefully avoided his eyes for a moment while I considered my response before glancing over and asking, keeping my voice light,

"Has the interrogation begun already?" His response was instant and equally light.

"Not at all, I'm just feeling slighted that you didn't look me up." I grinned at him but my feeling of unease was growing. Something was amiss here but I was damned if I could put my finger on it. I might have to do some fishing of my own.

"Ah, we're still buddies, Hal." Standing up and picking up my fresh drink from the bar I added, "Shall we?" and we headed towards a table away from the bar. Best to be somewhere separate from where any other arriving patrons could hear us. As we sat down I admitted, honestly, "Langley just doesn't want our hands in each other's pockets any more." Harry took his phone out, checked something on the screen and then tossed it on the table as I continued both unofficial and official fishing. "The Middle East is turning itself inside-out. My bosses think you guys are too close to the action."

He didn't bite, of course, merely gave a dismissive,

"That's ridiculous," and took a sip of his whiskey, mind clearly elsewhere, so I thought I'd needle a bit more.

"Yeah, maybe, but Tripoli to London is only a three-hour flight."

His response was a rather old-fashioned look but again he didn't take the bait, instead swinging the hook back my direction by asking again, politely but rather abruptly,

"So what brings you to London?"

Two could play at that game. My reply was equally blunt.

"I'm keeping an eye on your deal with the Russians, that's all. What do you think?"

That did get a reaction. Understated but the fact that I picked up his surprise at all was indicative of his state of mind. Harry Pearce had a legendary poker-face so a visible reaction proved that the man was worried about something and it looked like this deal might have something to do with it, although I wasn't remotely convinced that the issue actually had anything to do with the public political game that was going on. Both his voice and his expression were disconcerted, to say the least, when he answered.

"How did you find out about that?"

No way was I admitting to any of _that,_ not even for an old friend and sparring partner like Hal, so I shook my head and glanced sideways at him as I laughed gently.

"I'll pass on that one, Mr Quizmaster." There was silence for a moment until I added carefully, "Yeah, I don't know how much you know about that one, Harry, but if that thing goes through, you guys are going to be more of a poodle to Moscow than you ever were to us."

He quirked an ironic eyebrow at me in that characteristic way of his.

"So what's it to Uncle Sam? I thought he wanted out of this relationship."

"Well, it doesn't mean he wants you to start seeing other people. It's going to knock the whole thing off balance."

A slightly sarcastic,

"Have the President call the Prime Minister," was the only answer I got to that one. He was definitely not concentrating on the politics, there was something else about the whole issue that was distracting him. Normally we could spend hours chewing the fat on subjects like this but not today.

"He will, when the time's right." We exchanged hard looks for a moment before I chose to back off a little. "Right now we're hoping your government is going to come to its senses on its own. We don't want to play the bully-boys. Well, not this time, anyway." He didn't react to that, either, apart from the continued expressionless stare, so I smiled again, sat back and added, "Now, why don't you stop flirting, introduce me to the monkey you've got on your back," before taking another pull at my vodka. It was a bit of a stab in the dark but what came next was the last thing I expected. Still unblinking, he said two words.

"Elena Gavrik."

It took all my self control to not choke on my drink and the creeping sensation of cold that made itself known in the pit of my stomach wasn't due to the ice in my glass. Sweet fucking Jesus, what had brought the subject of that frozen, porcelain bitch back out of the depths of the past? Knowing that she was the one subject Hal and I saw completely differently I said in disbelief,

"Now _that_ is a blast from the past.'

What came next was even more of a shock and I couldn't help a stunned expression crossing my face.

"That is what I am keen to ascertain."

Now I really couldn't believe my ears. What the hell was going on here? This wasn't just an insinuation of something, it was almost an accusation and I didn't like the implications so I gave a sharp,

"Excuse me?"

"Have you had recent contact with her?"

_What? Where did __**that**__ come from?_ Absolutely none of this was making sense but the cold was clawing its way out of my guts and into my veins now.

"We burned her file in '84," I reminded him, not so gently.

The quirk of the eyebrow again, combined with a challenging look.

"And you were none too pleased."

I knew what that was about, alright. I hadn't been pleased, for good reason: Elena had been a damned fine asset once we'd turned her but I'd never completely trusted her – her intel was almost too consistently good to be true and I always had the feeling that there was something off about her – and she'd proven to be nothing but trouble at the end, although he'd had more than a hand in that, too. But she had been feeding me good information relating to a number of black ops I was running and having to burn her when we did had destroyed those operations and put several of my assets in a very dangerous situation so I'd been justified in being seriously ticked off. I'd thought that then and still thought it now. Well, if he was going to take that attitude then so would I. I was surprised by how stung I was at his implication that I might have gone behind his back, which only served to sharpen my words even more.

"I don't recall there being much of a consultation process but I wouldn't go back on it and hey, it wasn't me that had the 'connection' to her."

As soon as the comment was out of my mouth I knew it was going too far and gave a strained smile to try to mitigate the damage but, strangely, it didn't really seem to have affected him very much. Instead, that unidentifiable expression was in his eyes now as he gazed at me over his glass. I believe that was the first moment I realised exactly how much whatever it was had rattled him. Harry was always imperturbable, absolutely nothing ever fazed him. Not now, though. Maybe it was just the effect of whatever had happened on top of the enquiry and everything that had gone before but, for the first time in my life, I thought I saw a glimpse of desperation in his dark eyes. He swallowed another mouthful of the whiskey and put his glass down, dropping his combative gaze at the same time.

"I have to go."

There was sadness there on his face when he looked up at me again. My disquiet and unrest was escalating at a rate of knots so I said, already regretting my unwarranted snipe at that honey-trap that had gone so spectacularly wrong and hurt him so deeply in the process,

"Harry." We gazed at each other for a long moment, both considering what had just happened. "I really do still think of us as friends, you know."

"I know." There was a flash of regret along with the sadness as we looked at each other before he suddenly smiled again and the old Hal was back, along with the conspiratorial tone of voice. He leaned forward and said confidentially, "You shaved two years off your wife's age. Gianna is 41. You still trying to impress me, James?"

We grinned at each other, albeit hollowly, and he picked up his phone, got to his feet, turned and walked away without another word. Watching him go, my smile faded and I picked up my drink again while I considered our odd little meeting and tried to convince myself that my gut feeling was wrong, although I knew it wasn't. He was in trouble and it was something to do with that infernal damned red-head. After he left and the shock had worn off a little I realised something else: that he had been fishing as hard as I had been, or possibly harder. But _why? _ Why, after over a quarter of a century, was he doubting that I had actually burned Elena, and why _now_? If I did nothing else, I was going to have to get to the bottom of this.

My brain was going ninety to the dozen on the way back to Grosvenor Square. For want of anything more concrete, I decided to do some checks on the Gavriks, update my files on them. I'd let my observations on that pair slip over the past decade: Ilya had come out of the collapse of the Soviet Union as a filthy-rich oligarch, mostly involved in petrochemicals but with fingers in many other pies as well. It hadn't been entirely his own doing, of course – he had friends in very high places, especially these days – but, to give him his due, a lot of it _had_ been his own efforts. Utilising all the dirt he had gathered during his time in the KGB, as well as the contacts, of course. Elena had stayed in the background, playing the dutiful wife, notable only for her ability to spend money on designer clothes, shoes and jewellery, although apparently she was also the perfect business partner in that she was a renowned hostess and patron of the arts. So presumably she had done her bit for the business as well. I could guess how – she had a devastating charm when she chose to exercise it and hosting exclusive soirees and dinners gave her the perfect opportunity. The charm was how she had snared Harry – in fact, I used to stir him up at the time by asking if he was sure he had actually recruited her or if it was the other way around – but what he didn't know was that she had tried the same trick on me when I had first met her, just before Hal arrived in Berlin, except I'd given her short shrift. Not that _that_ had stopped her continuing to play her manipulative little games at any opportunity.

Anyway, since 9/11 my – everyone's – attention had been diverted elsewhere so it was probably past time that those old files of mine were updated. As soon as I walked through the door of my temporary office I had the team start working on the update while I extracted my own records from the depths of the intranet as well as calling Gian and asking her to send me a specific thumb drive from the stash in our safe. That woman is magnificent: understands intuitively when not to ask questions and cheerfully goes along with such obscure requests, knowing it's for the greater good. I sighed as I hung up the call: why hadn't I met her 20 years earlier than I had? Although if I _had_ she would have still been in junior high school so maybe fate had the right idea after all, waiting until we were both at that conference in Geneva…

My ruminations were interrupted by the office door swinging open and my temporary analyst breezed in without so much as a knock. That was one thing about Hal that I'd always found funny in past years: he absolutely loathed people entering his office without knocking and made no bones about making that fact known to any unfortunate who did it. I knew it was because of the amount of incredibly sensitive information he and I usually had on our desk or computer but it had always made him seem a little stuffy and pompous...until the last few years when the habit had seemed to become universal among the junior echelons of my staff and had begun to irritate me equally as much. The first time I caught myself roaring at someone for not knocking I'd almost laughed, but after the fourth or fifth time I realised he and I were just becoming grumpy old men together!

Anyway, in this case the analyst – Brontee, that was her name, Brontee Sorenson from somewhere in small-town Minnesota, I suddenly remembered – got away with it because of the intel she brought with her. It seemed that our old friend Ilya Gavrik had indeed gone up in the world and, for the past couple of years, had been the Minister of International Development for the Kremlin. This was a plum job apparently created for him as some sort of thanks by the most powerful of his friends, his former mentee from Dresden, one Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin. How had that one slipped by me? And the son, Aleksandr Illyich, was now on an upwards trajectory through the ranks of the FSB, although rumour had it that he was getting there because of Daddy's influence and was actually more trouble than he was worth: over-indulged and full of himself without any reason to be, like so many of his generation. I took that on board to consider later because of even more interest was the most recent news: both Ilya Andreivitch and Elena Platonovna had quietly vanished from their luxurious Moscow enclave ten days ago. Now, was that a coincidence or was that a 'coincidence'? That the Gavriks went dark at the same time as the mysterious diplomatic flight had arrived at Brize Norton, the FSB had started buzzing around town like so many demented hornets and Harry Pearce suddenly brought up Elena after 27 years? I thought not but surely he couldn't be sweating blood over their presence in London? It was hardly the first time they had slipped in and out of town, only before it had been very quick, private visits, to do with Kaspgaz, one of Ilya's businesses. And, presumably, to allow Elena to run amok in Harrods and the designer boutiques in the fashionable areas of town. Surely those visits hadn't gone un-noticed? Perhaps they had…

Dismissing the girl with thanks I turned to staring out the window of the office at the quaint, tree lined street below, humming with pedestrians and black cabs, letting the information percolate through my brain for a few minutes. One of the last things Brontee had mentioned was that there was some sort of official reception on tonight at Bannon Hall, a former stately home that was now a conference and banqueting centre. The reception was both highly exclusive and involved many of the so-called 'great and good' from both Britain and, to my total lack of surprise by now, Russia. It was too late for me to wheedle my way in to play fly-on-the-wall but surely… I made a call to another extension in the building and hung up after a few minutes, feeling more sanguine. Of course we hadn't let this one slip under the radar: we had a couple of our own people inside, working as wait-staff, so I'd get the feedback I wanted. I'd also asked for some eyes outside, watching for the Gavriks (whom I was certain were going to be among the guests of honour) and ready to follow them when they left. I wanted to know where they were staying and this seemed the quickest way to achieve that particular objective.

Much as I wanted to be there, somewhere, it wouldn't be a good idea – I had a sneaking suspicion MI5, and probably MI6, would be crawling all over the place, as well as the FSB, so couldn't risk being spotted – so I ended up loading all the files I currently had, old and new, onto my laptop and heading back to the hotel to work on them there. James Junior distracted me with a phone call for a while, detailing his latest sporting achievements (his sister was the academic of that pair, despite them both having the same amount of brains), but even so my thoughts were elsewhere, flickering between now and what might be going on at the reception and the past, with long-dormant memories from my years in Berlin, often working on joint operations with Harry and other agents from Six, rising up like ghosts as I methodically worked through the files in something approaching chronological order.

Sasha exercised my mind for some time: that child, whose very existence had caused so much strife in Berlin during the first half of the eighties, was now a grown man, with a very hot, uncontrollable temper, from all reports. Not unlike Harry at the same age, except he always knew how to channel his temper. Well, most of the time. Thank God the kid wasn't here in town because he would just make the situation worse by his very presence.

Another phone call came later, as I was closing everything down for the evening, tired from reliving the past and bashing my brains out against the present. The Gavriks had indeed been there, as had the British Home Secretary, William Towers, half the FSB agents in town, Sir Harry Pearce and most of his immediate team. Even so, there had been an assassination attempt on Ilya; quick action from Harry and his team had prevented the attempt from being successful and they had terminated the assassin. The Gavriks had been hastily bundled out and into an official car, which had now conveniently led my people to the hotel in which they were staying. All in all, an interesting evening. Instead of going to bed, I went out onto my tiny balcony and spent some time in the surprisingly balmy evening, breathing in the air and the view of the night city. It didn't help. Still nothing made sense. Eventually I did give up, went for a satisfyingly long soak in the shower and hit the sack, hoping things would look better in the morning.

I should be so lucky.


	4. Chapter 4

**4. London. The following morning.**

I wasn't. Lucky, that is. Sleeping on the subject had done exactly nothing and the full briefing the next morning just threw up more murk. Everything had, apparently, been perfectly normal for that sort of event although, surprisingly, Harry and his side-kick (identified as an analyst who worked closely with him – that registered in the back of my mind because hadn't the 'woman' involved in the events leading up to his enforced leave been his analyst?) had walked straight up to the Gavriks and, to all appearances, had a pleasant discussion. The two women had gone off for a chat together, leaving Ilya and Harry sizing each other up, politely but definitively, as they continued to talk. All that was overheard was something about Gavrik's success in business – the waiter hadn't been able to hang around, but I could bet the barbs had been flying both directions no matter how polite the words. Later, our other insider had observed a very brief meeting between Harry and Elena in a corridor outside the main reception room and my immediate gut response to that was along the lines of _'Jesus Christ, don't tell me she's __**still**__ got you on a string after 25 years, Hal?' _It left me feeling strangely down but also unsettled: it couldn't have been that simple. For starters, I knew for a fact that he had never actually loved Elena Platonovna, even when he had been trying to believe that he did. However, as the purported mother of his son it was a different story and all his ancient protective instincts came to the fore. If you believed that rumour, that is, and I for one had never completely bought it. There _had_ to be something else to it. According to our assets, he hadn't looked exactly happy during the short discussion while Elena had been watching him like a snake, then and during the entire evening.

Later, of course, had come the assassination attempt. There had been some sort of altercation in the back corridors not long beforehand: that was something we still didn't have any information on but first all the wait staff had been pulled off the floor and then all the security and intelligence personnel stopped moving just as the would-be assassin had pulled his gun. Harry had dropped the man with one blow (despite the disbelief of my underlings I didn't doubt that – he had always been a handy man in a fight, our years in the military had often stood us in good stead in everything from bar-room brawls to 'disagreements' with KGB and Stasi agents in Berlin) but he still managed to get a shot away before scrambling back to his feet and out of the room, a young, glamorous piece in light blue satin hot on his heels and one of Harry's field officers hot on hers. The glamour-puss was believed to be his Section Chief, Erin Watts; whoever she was, she wasted no time in dealing with the assassin, leaving him dead on the floor in a nearby banquet hall. The Gavriks had been rushed out and away while most of the rest of the guests were doing the same thing of their own accord. And that had been pretty much it.

I stared absently at the table top as I listened, slowly drumming my fingers as I thought about what had happened and tried to summarise events. I couldn't do that while I was surrounded by people but instead snapped to the room in general,

"Has the wanna-be assassin been identified yet?"

"Yes, Sir." It was the same bright young thing who had yesterday delivered the news about the Gavrik's movements. Young enough to be my daughter, blonde, blue-eyed, very pretty and tended to play ditzy although she obviously wasn't. Irritating. "We managed to obtain some of the surveillance footage from inside the venue at the time of the attempt and ran some facial recognition on him. He got inside as a waiter called Luc Marquand but his real name was Marcus Collison. English, a former corporal in the SAS and an arms and explosives expert. He spent time in the Gulf, was injured in Bosnia and ended his official military career with NATO in Iraq in 2003." She stopped to catch her breath but I fixed her with a stare that made her squirm, impatient to hear the rest. She cleared her throat and went on, "He reappeared in Iraq in 2005 with Weland Smithy, that ultra-clandestine, highly suspect South African based assassination arm of Aegis Defence Services, but didn't stay long, popping up as an extremely thorough, albeit expensive and totally independent gun-for-hire the following year. That's what he's been doing ever since. He was very much in demand, registering on our radar everywhere, from Chechnya to Libya to Colombia and India. However, his strongest links seem to be with Chechnya. They pay the best, they've provided him with regular work and they don't care how he achieves their aim. We're still working on it but he seems to have the closest links with these two war-lords." Their photos flashed up on the screen. I didn't recognise the first – yet another jumped up Sunni cleric, this time from the back woods of Nozhay-Yurtovsky - but the second one rang a few bells. His name was Aslan Maximovitch Ulyanov and he was a friend of Ilya's, dating from their time together firstly in the Soviet Army and later the GRU in the late 1960's and the 1970's, including a stint in Afghanistan during the invasion in 1979, and then through similar careers in the KGB. Ulyanov had been getting rich from the connection for the past 15 years, being very adept at playing both sides against each other for his own gain and without the slightest compunction, although it had long been noted that he always trod very carefully around his former army buddy. So why the Hell would he now try to kill the goose that was providing his golden eggs over an agreement between Russia and Britain which would have no effect on his own operations whatsoever and, in fact, was likely to provide him with more opportunities? That really did make no sense at all: my staff didn't know the half of that, of course, but I would have to send them back to look at it again. It wasn't that Ulyanov wouldn't do it if he thought it would outweigh the benefits he would lose but I couldn't see how that would ever be the case.

I came back to the present with a start, realising that the room had gone quiet while I was thinking. Everyone was looking at me expectantly but I still needed time and a bit of quiet to sort things out in my own mind before I spoke to anyone else so I looked back at them, suddenly realising that there was more to the silence than them waiting for me. There was a distinct atmosphere so I sighed and said,

"Alright, what is it? Spit it out, I don't have time to sit here playing staring games."

Another one of the children – with every passing year the juniors were getting ever younger, making me feel like a grizzled old man from some holler in the Appalachians somewhere – finally spoke up. A trendy Gen Y Latino kid from Corpus Christi called Raul Silva, with spiked hair, an eyebrow stud and tattoos peeking out above his collar and below his cuffs, he looked as brash as any of his generation but at least managed to speak with some deference.

"We identified a couple of other people while we were running the facial recog." The first photo flashed up and my attention suddenly sharpened. "Aleksandr Gavrik is in town and was also there. Not just as their son. He is part of their FSB security team." My heart sank. _Shit, that was all we needed. If Hal found out about that, Christ knows what he would do in his current state of mind. If he hasn't found out already. In fact, he probably did know: he must have seen the boy there, even if he hadn't heard about it before-_ The second photo replaced Sasha's and very effectively re-focussed my attention. "This woman was also there, apparently as a guest. On the list of attendees as Miriam Chapman. Not her real name. That is Veronica Duran. One of our best deeply deniable assets in this part of the world, ex-Royal Air Force, the Defence HUMINT Organisation branch of Defence Intelligence and, very briefly, MI6—"

"I know who she is, I've been utilising her for years," I interrupted, wondering why I felt like the plot had just thickened to the consistency of wet concrete.

"Yes, Sir." He didn't look even faintly crushed. "Before you ask, she wasn't there on our behalf, or any of the other Governments that she works for, as far as we can tell, but she was seen on the phone after the attempt, looking pleased with herself."

"Is there any way you can track that call?"

"We're trying but probably not, unless we can get hold of the phone itself."

"You won't, not with Veronica. But keep at it. Is that all?" Heads bobbed around the table. "Okay, thank you all. Good work, now keep it up. Brontee—" I looked at the flaxen analyst "—you keep working on what you can find about the Gavriks. Not just Ilya, see what you can dig up about Elena, going back as far as you can. Before she married Ilya she was known as Elena Struchkova and was a member of the Kirov Ballet. While you're at it, see if you can find any medical records for her, from either Berlin or Moscow, for the period 1980-1982, and do some more trawling on the son as well. Also go back and review Collison's contacts in Chechnya: I don't buy the connection with Ulyanov, he has no reason to take out a contract on Ilya, he would lose too much. I'll bring you up to date on what I know about that connection shortly. Do as much hacking as you like and pull in as much assistance as you need. If anyone argues tell them to come and see me."

She looked like I'd just presented her with a _carte blanche_ to go shopping for Manolo Blahniks (come on, I've got a wife, two daughters, two ex-wives and a sister, of course I know who Manolo Blahnik is).

"Yes, Sir."

"Raul." The tattoo-ed Latino youth lifted his gaze from Brontee's chest to meet my eyes. "You, D'wane and the rest of the crew get to both assist Brontee with checking out Collison and run surveillance on Ilya and Elena at the same time. I want to know everywhere they go and everything they do but be very, very careful. Ilya was one of the best of his generation for the KGB and he will see you coming a mile off, if you give him the remotest opportunity. And believe me, you don't want to give him that opportunity. Also keep digging up what you can on what Veronica Duran is up to, who she's been in touch with lately, all the usual." Finally I turned to my local Section Chief. Tallulah Zanon was almost as old as me, thin as a rail, looked like everyone's sweet and gentle grand-mother and was one of the most fearsome field agents we had ever had. Period. Still was. She looked back, perfectly composed, probably half-guessing what I was about to lay on her plate.

"Tallulah, I've got something special for you."

"Sir." Ice cold, with a brain like a computer.

"It's going to be almost impossible for you to get much but I want you to commandeer the best people you can and use them to find out anything you can about what's going on inside Section D in Thames House. On top of that I would like you, personally, to track Harry Pearce for a few days. My gut is telling me that something is going on and he's involved. I'd like to know what."

A remote smile was all I got, along with,

"My pleasure, Sir," in her quiet New Orleans drawl.

"What I said about Ilya goes treble for Harry. Ilya will be a little out of practice. Harry is not. That's why I want you to do the job yourself. But be careful."

She inclined her head and said no more so, looking around at all of them I added, "I'm sure all of you know that part of the operation is not to be mentioned outside this room, on pain of instant dismissal and imprisonment." I dismissed them all and went back to my office to consider the past 24 hours in peace. I didn't come up with much and there were as many questions, if not more, than anything resembling an answer. Even the time-line was vague.

_The Russkies and the Brits decide to formalise a relationship that has been getting steadily cosier for years._ Any particular reason why, or why now? Or was it just pique that Uncle Sam was turning his focus away from London?

_Ilya Gavrik, now an oligarch and a powerful Russian Minister, arrives in London on the QT for the formalisation ceremony. Accompanied by his former MI6/CIA asset wife._ _And Harry, temporarily suspended and under investigation, is suddenly reinstated to his job just in time to save our old Nemesis from an assassination attempt._ Now I can see why Ilya turned up but was it a coincidence that Harry suddenly gets his job back at the same time?

_Sasha Gavrik arrives as part of his parents' security detail._ That was odd as well – perhaps Ilya had pulled some strings but it seemed unlikely, he knew it wasn't a good idea as family often forgot their official position when under duress and could be extremely unreliable as a result. It was more likely that Elena, who had always been obsessed with the boy, had manipulated his inclusion onto the team. She had always been Ilya's weak point and he would do anything to keep her happy.

_Having been spirited out of Moscow to London with no-one, including the CIA and, probably, MI5 being the wiser, there is an assassination attempt on Ilya at his very first public appearance._ Something didn't gel there, either: who knew, far enough ahead, where he was going to be and what he was going to be doing, in order to organise a hit? Collison was good – one of the best – but hits still needed time to be put together and he was only the hired help, after all. So who had leaked? And why the hit, anyway? Collison's employers were apparently Chechen. But were they behind the hit or were they middle-men?

_Henry James Pearce._ Make that _Sir_ Henry. I knew he was still the only one of his circle who didn't understand why he'd been given the handle. Just as I knew he was seriously worried about something _(what?) _relating to the Gavrik's – specifically, Elena's – reappearance in his lifeand I suspected that he may have been as lost in the dark about that as I was. The one thing I did know was that for some totally bizarre reason he thought I was still either in touch with, or running, Elena. After what had played out between us all in Berlin, that left me the most puzzled of all…

My head hurt and I needed coffee. Hauling myself to my feet and, for once, feeling every day of my age, I went out for a walk and to find some coffee. English coffee was generally rubbish but there was a little café owned by a bunch of Aussies just down the road and they made the best coffee I'd had since visiting Italy with Gianna on our honeymoon. I liked the atmosphere there as well, it reminded me of home – bright, breezy, casual – and I had become so much of a regular that they knew me by name and inevitably had my order under way by the time I made it to the counter so I headed there for my morning fix and tried not to think.

I failed again, of course.


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Grosvenor Square, London. Three days later.**

The surveillance came up with next to nothing. Ilya went about his government business as well as regularly spending time in the exclusive glass tower in the City that housed the Kaspgaz Oil offices; Elena spent most of her time either shopping or visiting galleries and museums, although she also hosted a political/business lunch for several high-profile, powerful business women and female politicians. Harry spent his time shuttling between Thames House and Whitehall, as usual. Sasha spent most of his time at the FSB office when he wasn't acting as security to either of his parents and that was surprisingly infrequently – he was only spotted with Ilya once, as part of the team surrounding him while he was attending another official meeting at Towers' club, but spent rather more time attending his mother at their hotel.

The digging was marginally more successful. Brontee had come up with some more details on Elena's past, most of which I already knew:

_Elena Platonovna Struchkova, born 18 May 1955, only child, parents killed in a car accident in 1958, raised by her father's parents before joining the Kirov Ballet School in Leningrad at the age of eight. Holidays spent with her grandparents or, increasingly, with the family of her best friend, Alla Sergeievna Levrova. Both graduated to positions in the Kirov corps de ballet and were rising steadily through the ranks, Elena having just been promoted to First Soloist, when she broke her foot after over-balancing during a performance, kept dancing that night and never recovered from the injury as a result. She had already met Ilya by this stage and married him shortly thereafter, while he was still in the Army. Her friend Alla kept dancing, reaching Ballerina status, some said due to her family's influence as much as talent, and the two women had remained friends ever since. Alla was now retired from performing but was a renowned international coach, based in an exclusive suburb in Moscow where she lived with her husband, Yuri Zykov, another former KGB officer who had done well for himself, and son, Pavel, while her oldest child, daughter Olga, was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. Their home was not far from that of the Gavriks in one direction and that of her older brother, Mikhail, whom both she and Elena had adored from childhood, in the other. The families still socialised occasionally but it had been noted that Ilya and, since he had reached adulthood, Sasha, were rarely part of it._

So far, so good, although she hadn't uncovered the fact that although Elena's parents had indeed died in a car accident, the "accident" had been arranged by the newly-created KGB (a fact used to great effect to turn her to our side) due to Platon Struchkov's known and vocal anti-Soviet/pro Russian nationalist beliefs and his public agitation in support of the Hungarian uprising. His own parents, those who later brought up Elena, had been well-known intellectuals at the end of the Tsarist regime, with his father having fought on the losing side during the Revolution and later the family had suffered for it, including having their older daughter, the original Yelena, disappear into a Siberian gulag, never to return: I wondered what effect finding _that_ out about her name-sake aunt and grand-parentshad had on the young girl, after what had happened to her parents.

What came next, though, was rather more interesting. Ilya had been posted to Berlin in early 1981, about six months before Hal had ended up there as well on his second secondment to Six. I had already been there for a year by then, my first posting with the Agency after leaving the 82nd Airborne and a stint in military intelligence, but had met Harry in 1980 while I'd been briefly stationed in Cologne, covering that desk for a few weeks, and we'd started working together. I'd already spotted Elena and tagged her as a potential asset: a bored housewife with good connections, she seemed to have a _carte blanche_ for getting in and out of West Berlin, frequenting the theatres, galleries and shops. What I didn't know until now, courtesy of some old medical records that Brontee had extracted from God knows where, was that she had been pregnant when they arrived in Berlin but had lost the child shortly thereafter, long before Harry appeared in town minus Jane and Catherine who had now returned permanently to London, as he had been planning on doing before Six demanded his services in Germany again. Once he had returned, we decided she might be worth pursuing, if only to keep tabs on Ilya, and we had turned her before the end of that year. It had been ridiculously fast and easy once we had developed the slightly falsified file and he had focussed his attentions on the honey-trap – for some reason he is far and away the most successful agent I have ever come across when it came to honey-traps – and by the time he returned to London before Christmas she was already starting to feed us solid gold information that was saving operations and lives. She was also pregnant again.

Sasha had been born the following April. Hal had wangled his way back for a few days, arriving in time to see the boy as a new-born. I knew damned well by that stage that he was convinced he was the father – he had spilled all to me during an inebriated lunch before Christmas – but I had never completely believed it because the numbers didn't quite stack up, despite Elena insisting that the child was several weeks premature, which would have fixed the issue. However, although I didn't have kids of my own at that stage I was a recent uncle twice over and a lot of my friends had recently had children, and both of my nephews as well as a few of the others had arrived early. And Sasha hadn't look premmie to me, he looked full-term, if not a little over-cooked. Now, here I was staring at copies of paperwork that confirmed my old suspicion. According to her medical records, Elena had been confirmed about six weeks' pregnant in mid-August. Less than three weeks after Harry had first seduced her. The child had been delivered by emergency caesarean, a week _after_ he was due. Which fitted my observations and meant it was impossible for Harry to be the father – he was still in London when the boy was conceived.

I sat back and considered that for a moment while my analyst was delving in her files for more revelations. If Harry still thought Sasha was his son, he was living under a delusion that was 30 years old so I hoped for his sake that he had given up on the idea. However, I doubted it and suspected that the belief may explain, at least in part, his apparent twitchiness due to the reappearance of the Gavriks in his life. My eyes fell on one of Brontee's print-outs: a photo of Sasha. I picked it up and was suddenly transported back to Berlin in 1981 because the son was breath-takingly like the father. Ilya. Apart from blue eyes, a slightly wider, squarer face and an equally slight chestnut cast to his hair, it was like seeing the young Colonel Gavrik for the first time. I was certain of it but, just in case, would go and pull some old photos of Ilya from the files and compare the two. Having now come face to face with the young man, Harry could not possibly still think he was involved in that child's conception, surely, no matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise?

Brontee was putting more bits of paper in front of me so I dragged myself back to the room and concentrated on what she had. Most of it was about Ilya and the only surprising thing there was how straight he appeared to have become. For someone who was every bit as devious as both Hal and I, his business and political operations now all appeared to be above-board and ship-shape. Presumably, with his friends, he had no reason to act any other way and actually had a strong reputation for honesty, reliability and professionalism among his peers in the global business world. That nearly made me choke on the remnants of my coffee – as if big business was ever straight! – but at least he didn't seem to be killing his enemies any more. More likely, he was getting others to do the job for him. Or preferred to destroy them financially. That didn't stop his enemies from taking pot-shots at him, on a regular basis, but he and his security team were too good, or had been so far, so the other night would just be one more failed attempt to add to the list as far as he was concerned.

The crew had been through Collison's background again, pulling everything they could, and had come up with another name. More tenuous than the other two but there nonetheless. A character called Hamet Fasli in North Ossetia had hired Collison several times over the past few years, always for obscure but extremely lucrative contracts. I'd never heard of him but he sounded like a prime suspect so I told her to add him to the list of names to be researched.

There were two other print-outs that took us back to our earlier conversation. Two birth certificates. One from a hospital in East Berlin, the other the official registration of birth from the Soviet central files in Moscow. I was definitely _not _going to ask how she'd come by either of those documents. The former was for a male child named Sasha, born in East Berlin to mother Elena Platonovna Gavrik and father Harry Pearce; the latter for a male child named Aleksandr Ilyich, born the same day in the same hospital to the same mother (nee Struchkova) and father Ilya Andreivitch Gavrik. _What the Hell? _I had no doubts about the veracity of the second certificate but why was the first one in existence at all? There was no way Elena could have got away with it herself, not at that time and place in history, so she either had to have had help or, for some reason, someone else had put the thing in place. It clearly wasn't MI6 (Harry), otherwise the details would have been correct (who the Hell didn't realise that his real name was Henry, for starters?). A sudden chill struck me: what if it was the KGB itself? Not Ilya – his single and greatest obsession and weakness was his wife, with Sasha as an extension of her – but someone else. What purpose would a fake birth certificate serve and on what time scale? For some reason, the thought took hold and wouldn't let go and my creeping sense of unease accelerated a little. I would really have to think about that.

I thanked the girl for her efforts, asked her for electronic copies of every bit of data she had come up with so far, particularly those two certificates, and sent her on her way with orders to continue delving, especially into Elena, her cronies and their extended activities. I had to put that aside for the moment, though, as both Raul and Tallulah updated me with their findings. Tallulah had got nowhere much: Harry was doing his day-to-day job and she hadn't found out anything yet about what might be going on inside either Section D or Five as a whole. The only slightly odd thing was that he had been walking back to Thames House from Whitehall this morning and had taken a phone call. Nothing unusual in that but it was a very short call – about ten seconds, she estimated – and he had said not another word after first answering. Instead, he had come to a dead halt and, said Tallulah, looked slightly sick as he had put the phone away. She had kept walking past him when he stopped and risked a glance back as she checked the traffic to cross the road but he was so distracted that he didn't notice.

She had also come up with some names for those Five officers involved in the fracas earlier in the week: glamour-puss was indeed Harry's Section Chief, Erin Watts; the young gentleman who had intercepted a bullet from Collison (having been there myself, I idly wondered how spectacular his bruising would be by now underneath where the ordnance had hit his body armour) was a former Special Boat Services member by the name of Dimitri Levendis, who was the senior field officer in Harry's directly subordinate team; and Harry's plus-one on the night was, as suspected, his senior analyst, one Ruth Evershead, who was most definitely the woman involved in the events leading up to Harry's recent suspension and the enquiry. I tucked all that information away for future reference as well and asked Tallulah to keep at it.

Raul had little extra to report apart from the catalogue of the Gavrik's movements. They had had somewhat more success regarding Veronica Duran, though. They were on the verge of tracking who she had made the phone call to after the assassination attempt, by coming at it from the other end and homing in by way of calls recorded passing through all the nearby mobile towers at around the right time and triangulating the results to filter out those which appeared to have come from Bannon Hall. He was sure they would have an answer within a couple of days. Almost as a side-line, the delving into Veronica's activities had revealed her current base so I'd had them observe her as well. It had soon become clear that she was up to something, although we didn't know what – she was extremely devious and fearsomely clever – but the most recent sighting had left me puzzled.

She had been followed this morning to Camden Markets, where she briefly met up with a trio of thugs and then somehow managed to make the entire group vanish into the crowds, losing her tail. The thugs reappeared a little later, Veronica didn't and, for want of anything else to do, D'wane followed them onto the Tube. By the time they reached their final exit at Waterloo and headed down towards the river D'wane had come to the conclusion that they were on some sort of operation, presumably for Veronica – he said they had that "air of suppressed excitement" and were acting a little too casually on the train – and he was soon proven right. He continued to follow them to the Embankment; when they got near to Lambeth Bridge they checked their watches, pulled their hoods up and split in three directions but not going very far, loitering near the bottom of the steps. D'wane, some way behind them, stopped as well but didn't have long to wait before an unprepossessing young man carrying a metal briefcase – just another overly-casual young turk heading back to his office in the City – appeared and walked down the stairs. The trio sprang into action and had mugged him and taken off with the briefcase in the space of about ten seconds. It was all over so quickly that D'wane had lost track of them before he got to the scene; all he noticed was that the target had looked both stricken and furious and had, in turn, high-tailed it back over the Bridge. And, interestingly enough, straight into Thames House.

That did catch my attention. For years, there had been a weekly data exchange between Five and Six. Quaintly, it was always hand-delivered, the couriers alternating weekly between the two agencies. I suddenly knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that the bag-snatch this morning had been the courier from Five. Harry would be livid if it was one of his but, more importantly, all of Thames House would be buzzing like a hornet's next because of what the briefcase contained. The data would be protected by every technology available but there were hackers out there – the likes of Anonymous sprang to mind, to say nothing of the Chinese government – who wouldn't take long to crack the encryptions and then only God knew what was going to happen.

Another thought occurred to me: Veronica, as an ex DI and MI6 operative, would have known about the data exchange. When it happened, how it happened, she had probably even taken part herself at some point. That was why Hal hated the regularity of it and had been pushing for years to change the routine; in our business, doing anything on a regular basis left you wide open for exactly this sort of thing to happen. And now it had.

I dismissed the team to go back to their digging and returned to my temporary office to chew things over. I would lay bets that Harry's phone call had been from Elena – probably a follow up to that equally brief discussion in the corridor at the reception. Presumably they were setting up a meeting but why? Sasha? No, it couldn't be. Even if he believed the story, Elena knew the truth so there had to be more to it. Or maybe she was going to tell him the truth… No, it wouldn't be that, either. One of Elena's little quirks was that she was a power-freak. She had always liked – positively enjoyed – having a source of power over people, it allowed her to manipulate them to her own ends, whatever those ends were. With Ilya she had the power because he worshipped the ground she walked on; with Harry it was Sasha; with her best friend, Alla, it would probably be using the accident that had ended her dancing career to engender a pity that had lasted decades. Christ knows how many others there were. As far as I knew, she didn't have anything on me. Apart from my friendship with Hal… Thinking about her did my head in so I put it aside – no doubt Tallulah or one of her team would manage to find a way to eaves-drop on the meeting, whenever it was to be – and started to ponder the rest of the info.

An ex-MI6 officer organising to intercept the weekly data exchange between the sister organisations. The same officer who had been present at the attempted assassination of Ilya Gavrik. Was there _any _link between those two events or were they nothing to do with each other? Veronica was free-lance and totally amoral so not above working for more than one employer at the same time but my gut was telling me that these were aspects of the one operation. The boys really needed to find out who she was working for – they had to track that phone call.

Inevitably, my mind returned to the mystery of the two birth certificates and why the German one existed at all. I had got absolutely nowhere with that thought and was considering taking a walk down to the café for a coffee when D'wane came bursting through the door, followed by Raul and Brontee.

"Sir! Get onto the internet, now! It looks like someone is releasing what was probably in that briefcase."

He leaned over me and, in a few clicks, was on one of the internet sites that takes great delight in embarrassing every western security service that it can. I quickly scanned the article and then checked a couple of other sites. They were all saying the same thing: MI5 had had a laptop stolen and the thieves were now gleefully announcing that they knew what was on it, would decrypt it and then release the files one by one. My heart sank for them but we would only know how bad it would be once the information started coming out. I just hoped it wouldn't end in anything more than tears. A thought occurred to me.

"I presume surveillance teams are still in place?"

"Yes, Sir," they chorused

"Good. We're probably about to see flurry of activity so keep on top of it."

They all vanished again, leaving me to monitor the 'net and continue pondering whether this latest event was a coincidence or not and whether we were actually getting anywhere in finding out what was going on so I went back to my five points.

_The partnership_. I was still inclined to believe that it was exactly what it looked like: the UK formalising business relations that had been going on for years and, probably, using the result as a springboard to developing a new relationship with one of the major power players in Europe and, particularly, the Middle East, especially as we were distinctly on the nose in that hemisphere. We would just have to learn to live with it and I would leave the subject on the back-burner.

_Harry gets his job back just as Ilya turns up_. Still nothing to prove there was a connection between those two event but there wasn't anything to prove there wasn't, either.

_Sasha's role. _Nope. Still got no idea why he was involved, apart from someone indulging Elena's whims. Whether she had an ulterior motive who knew but someone, somewhere did, hence the two birth certificates. Someone wanted to prove a link between Harry and Elena that didn't exist in actuality but to what end I still had no damned idea.

_An assassination organised on someone nobody, including us, knew was in town._ I'd been thinking about that and the only thing I could come up with was that the original information on Ilya's travel plans had to have come from Moscow. Sure, the people in his office here probably knew he was coming but, knowing him, he wouldn't have given them any details on anything outside Kaspgaz business, which meant they wouldn't have known anything about the partnership side of the trip. Collison had been hired _via_ Chechnya but by whom? So, still not really any closer to the truth on that one, either.

_Harry. _Still jumpy and now, if I knew him (which I did), stricken by the old guilt merely by Sasha's presence in town, compounded by his first sighting of the boy in over 25 years. That had to relate back to question three but the reasons why were all still shrouded in fog. And now this computer theft to compound his problems…

Something popped up on the screen. _Oh, __**shit**__. _It was the first file off the stolen laptop. Full details, including photos, of an MI5 AA Grade asset called John Grogan, a freelance engineer recruited by Harry's former Section Chief, that inimitable ice-queen Ros Meyers, and who had been spying for Britain on the Iranian Government. _Jesus Christ, did these people realise what they had just done?_ Unless Five got to him, _fast_, he would be dead within the hour. And presumably there would be more of the same ilk to come. As the full horror of what was unfolding hit I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't in my old buddy's position right now. Although at least it might take his mind off the Gavriks for a while.

A short while, as it happened. One of Raul's technocrats had stuck her head in the door and told me that someone was flooding the net with viruses, slowing everything down: she wasn't sure of the purpose of the exercise – although if a hacker was using botnets to decrypts Five's files that might explain it – or where they were coming from but it had to be a government, no-one else had that amount of power. Perhaps it was MI5. Barely had she left when one web-site put up headlines screaming that Grogan (the "outed spy", in their scandal-sheet terminology) had been found dead and, within minutes, another site released photos of people coming out of Grogan's flat with the equally tabloid headline "Witness saw men leaving 'suicide' spy's flat". Crap, this really was going from bad to worse but it was raising more questions. Not only about whether it was a coincidence or not but what the purpose might be. The first and logical assumption was that someone was setting up MI5 – whoever had organised the theft of the laptop knew what was going on enough to get someone outside Grogan's flat and await events, camera at the ready – but again, why? Getting back at them for something? It must have been a pretty big "something": one man was already dead and Christ knew how many more would go the same way. Although surely Harry would have had the assets all pulled by now…

I hadn't got any further than that thought when the next file was released on the same web-sites. This time is was a woman, one Martha Forde. A triple-A asset who just happened to be employed as a business analyst by Kaspgaz Oil. That was it. I no longer believed that the laptop theft was a coincidence, it had to have something to do with the proposed partnership deal with Moscow. If someone was trying to personally piss Ilya off and tempt him to walk away, they had just done it: he wouldn't take kindly to the news that MI5 had a spy inside his inner business sanctum at all (although, to be honest, he probably wouldn't be surprised), let alone having that news splattered all over the world wide web. And the Kremlin's reaction wouldn't be pretty, either. This could bring down the whole agreement. On the subject of Ilya, it seemed that there _was_ a link between the assassination attempt on him and the laptop theft and that link was Veronica Duran. We had to find her again.

It had taken all of three hours for whoever it was to break the encryption on the second file so it looked like Raul's side-kick was right and someone was using botnets, there was no other way to have broken the file that quickly. Raul himself called in as I was thinking, reporting that Ilya had been in the Kaspgaz office for the past 25 minutes but must have surely seen the latest news: Raul had, on a big screen inside the foyer of the building that the office was in. A couple of security goons had come outside a few minutes before, looking as though they were searching for someone but obviously didn't find them and disappeared back inside, looking apprehensive. Raul was settling in to wait so I told him to keep in touch and hung up. The phone rang again as soon as I did: D'wane this time. As D'wane Brandon was a somewhat excitable young gentleman from the wrong side of the tracks in my own home town of Chicago, I took his comment of "It was totally surreal!" with a dose of salt, until he explained. He had taken over surveillance on Elena Gavrik a couple of hours ago and had followed her and her body guard to Covent Garden, where she appeared to be merely enjoying the atmosphere. Incredibly, D'wane almost spluttered, it seemed that he wasn't the only one following her: he had spotted one of the FSB Section Chiefs, Anatoly Arkanov, in the crowd, keeping pace with her. Even more incredibly, her own son seemed to be following Arkanov! He and the team would keep tracking all of them but he'd never seen anything like it in his life. "It's like following a conga-line of Russian spies, Sir!"

More food for thought. Arkanov presumably suspected Elena Gavrik of being up to something – from a poor family in the Urals, he had a reputation for being extremely bright and like a terrier with a bone once he got on the scent of something – but Sasha, also presumably, seemed to either suspect him or his mother as well. No, D'wane had said Sasha was following Anatoly, not Elena. I got up to stare out the window at the hazy blue sky, briefly pressing my fingers to my temples. I was getting old. All of this was just too hard…but there had to be an answer. Somewhere.

It didn't get any easier in the following hour. Fifteen minutes later D'wane called back, saying Elena and her tails had disappeared into the West End theatre where the Russian National Ballet were in the middle of a season. Five minutes after that, Tallulah rang with the news that she was following Harry as he drove from Thames House towards the West End and, in fact, it looked like they had got to their destination as his vehicle disappeared down a narrow alley along the side of one of the theatres, heading for the underground parking. The same theatre in which Elena was already sat. Well, well… I asked her to see if she could get inside and eavesdrop and then decided to escape the confines of four walls in favour of a stroll down to the café. I figured I had a few minutes' peace due me, at least, before the next round began. I expected that to happen once both Arkanov and Gavrik Junior saw who was about to turn up to talk to Elena.

Now, of course, there was another question to add to the list: what the hell was Harry doing, organising a secret meeting with Elena? Surely he wasn't still running her? I didn't believe that after our run-in at the bar that morning: he had made it blatantly obvious that he had thought that _I _was the one still running her. Anyhow, I couldn't accept that he'd still be using her after all this time, any more than I would. In fact, he'd had far more reason to steer clear of her for decades than I had: any sort of contact between them would have put Sasha in danger and there was no way he would risk that. There had to be something else.

Not only did I end up having time to walk to the café and order my coffee but I had the time to drink it, too. In fact, I was starting to wonder where everyone was when Tallulah rang in, perturbed. She'd lost Hal. She had managed to get inside the theatre and saw him join Elena but hadn't been able to get close enough to overhear what was said as she'd spotted Arkanov hovering by one of the doors into the auditorium as soon as she'd arrived and hadn't been able to get past him without being seen. All she could report was that the conversation had been short: Harry had appeared stressed while Elena seemed disbelieving and confused. Whatever was being said had got intense at the finish before he got up and left, without any warning. Tallulah had been so busy watching that she didn't realise Arkanov had disappeared but hadn't had time to consider that as Harry was heading straight towards her. She had taken off down the corridor and away from the main entry, slipping into the back of a box just as he got to the top of the steps. Elena appeared to have settled down to watch the rehearsal – "She is one strange lady, Sir. I don't know what it was but I felt like I was watching a performance from her," – so Tallulah gave him a few seconds before she followed him. She had then realised that he had stopped on the staircase to answer his phone, so shrank back for a little longer; by the time she had got downstairs he had vanished. She had checked all the exits, including going down to the carpark, but there was no sign of him.

I asked her to do what she could and got her to despatch one of her team back to Thames House, just in case he actually had got past her, which he probably had. Very few people managed to lose Tallulah when she was tailing them so I knew it would rankle with her and that she would find him again if it was possible.

She didn't. Her underling reported in forty five minutes later that Harry had arrived back in his car. It seemed that the exit from the theatre's car park was on a different street and she hadn't been aware of it. Mortified, she vowed it wouldn't happen again but I told her she didn't have time to worry and to high-tail it back to Millbank. I had a feeling things weren't over yet for the day and I was right. Half an hour later he was on his way again, Tallulah and her motorbike sticking to him like glue. All the way to Battersea, where he met glamour-puss and they disappeared into a nondescript, fairly modern building. Tallulah passed on the address and one of the techies identified it within a couple of minutes as housing the offices of a small, very exclusive communications business, specialising in high-tech security solutions. A couple more minutes and the name of the owner popped up: Victor Elliott, a former MI5 communications and technical specialist who had spent years seconded to MI6 in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. He had gone private in Iraq in 2007 but his company had been shut down in 2009. No-one knew why but the speculation was that he'd been involved in some dirty, illegal activities although there were darker whispers: that someone high up in the British intelligence services had set him up and shut him down so her husband's company could take over the very lucrative contracts…

I was more inclined to believe the latter. It sounded highly plausible and was a much stronger motive for revenge than being shut down for genuinely being caught doing the wrong thing. And he would have known about the data swap, too, but how did Veronica come into it? Or had he hired her to lift the thing for him? Before I could follow that idea Raul called in with the news that Ilya had just emerged from his office and got into his chauffeur-driven car, looking grim. Raul had jumped on his motor-scooter and was about to follow the car so I let him go.

It was with a total lack of surprise that I received the news, about 15 minutes later, that he was in Battersea… At about the same time new headlines started breaking on line: apparently the whole thing was a hoax, set up as revenge by an ex-spy with a grudge and the assets weren't assets at all. I didn't believe it for a minute: Harry and glamour-puss had got to Elliott and threatened him with God knows what but it had obviously worked. I could only breathe a sigh of relief – at least no more assets would be at risk. I was still staring at the photo of Elliott accompanying the article on ("Ex Spy: Leaks Are A Hoax"), wondering if he really was behind it or if, more likely, he was just a stooge for someone else, when Tallulah called back again, followed almost instantly by Raul on another line. Ilya had bailed up Harry and glamour-puss as they walked back towards Harry's car from Elliott's office. The conversation was short but, surprisingly, apparently not sharp. I could guess what it was about (Martha Forde) but it appeared to both observers that Ilya was actually being conciliatory. He appeared to suggest something and Hal appeared to agree. As he got back in his own car Gavrik had said something like "I hate loose ends, Harry," another comment that might have been about Martha Forde and had then driven off, leaving the other pair to continue their walk. They were now on their way back to Millbank, Tallulah following sedately, and Raul was off after Ilya again.

It was getting late in the day by this stage so I didn't really expect much more to happen, or at least I hoped not. To my knowledge the Gavriks had nothing planned so, with a bit of luck, would have another quiet night at the hotel and Harry would undoubtedly spend half the night in his office before heading home. Heading home sounded like a damned fine idea to me so I spent some time reviewing what had happened today with every intention of getting back to my hotel at a half-way reasonable hour. The events of the day were clearly aimed at disrupting the burgeoning relationship between London and Moscow but only the next few days would tell if that had worked but, right now, it seemed like Ilya was refusing to take the bait; as to who was behind it, that was still anyone's guess. The only thing for certain was that Veronica had been involved in organising the hit and probably delivering the goods to Elliott – she still had her contacts inside MI6 and I had no doubt that she would have known about Elliott, if not actually known him when they were both working for the Company – but Veronica's real talent was as an organiser, which was why I had used her occasionally. Anything you wanted, she could get, one way or the other, which suggested that she was probably doing the same thing now for someone else. But whom? The fact that today's events were targeting the partnership stank, to me, of being part of a bigger picture that included the attempted hit on Ilya Gavrik. And, as nothing had yet been released publicly in either country, or anywhere else, about the deal, that brought me straight back to my Question Number 4. Who knew and what did they hope to gain by scuppering the deal? Another little light bulb went off in my brain: if Duran had been the organiser of today's events, was she also the organiser of Collison? _Via_ Chechnya? I sincerely hoped that the techies could track down that phone call and that Brontee and her crew could sort out the Chechen link.

And what on Earth had Harry met up with Elena for? Was that going to become Question Number Six or was it still something to do with him thinking she was still active? As I was considering that thought my cell phone rang. It was Hal. I swear there are times when that man can read minds, honest to God… He wanted to catch up but wouldn't say why so we agreed to one of the usual haunts, on the Embankment opposite Westminster.

After I terminated the call I sat staring at my office wall for a while. I'd pretty much had enough for one day and needed a break anyway so a meet by the river might not be such a bad idea. It had been a very long day so I decided I would walk, to clear the cobwebs out of my skull if nothing else, and within a few minutes had shut everything down, picked up my coat and headed out. There I had another surprise: it was dark. And chilly! Cloud cover had crept in during the afternoon which meant that now, although it wasn't all that late, it felt it. The chill breeze that had come with the clouds didn't help but at least it reduced the number of people on the streets so I wasn't delayed by fighting through crowds. I had plenty of time so I strolled more than walked, enjoying the night-scape of the streets, parks and monuments as I went. It had clearly been drizzling, although no longer was, and the streets and side-walks were slick with water, over which lights glittered, ran, coalesced and broke up again as I walked, breathing in the fresh air and, for the first time in days, not thinking about Hal, the Gavriks, international business partnerships or anything else.

I got to the rendez-vous point a little early and was totally unsurprised to find Harry was already there. Well, his office _was _closer than mine! He was sitting on a bench, rugged up in an overcoat and his usual black leather gloves, staring out over the endless flow of that ancient waterway, the flood-lit, honey-coloured stones of the Palace of Westminster glowing on the far bank and looked, I thought, exhausted. Not a surprise, after the events of today. How many times had we met like this? Bridges, parks, river-banks, open plazas – out in the open so we could see who was around while we talked – and here we were yet again, 31 years after our very first meeting in the cobbled plaza in front of the magnificent Gothic monster that was Cologne Cathedral. I just hoped that we would have many more such meetings to come. He really was one of my oldest buddies and I didn't want to lose that, no matter what Elena Gavrik-shaped worm was eating his brain…

I sighed and approached slowly. A tourist with a day-pack was disappearing in the direction of Westminster Bridge but there was no-one else around so Hal heard my footsteps and looked up, a slight smile of greeting on his face as I sat next to him. Gazing out at the view I quoted,

"'Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep'."

The smile widened for a moment, the old twinkle in his eyes as he said, in apparent disbelief,

"There's still a CIA man who can quote Wordsworth!" I laughed at that, happy to have got the reaction I wanted, but then started to feel despondent as his smile faded again and he added quietly, "perhaps everything is going to be alright after all." He looked away again, studying the pavement in front of us. He looked as down as I felt so my follow up attempt at humour fell rather flat.

"Yeah, I thought it was Springsteen." For some reason I was struggling to meet his gaze so I looked away, up-river, again as he gave a slight chuckle in response, more out of politeness than humour. After a moment he said,

"Thank you for coming, Jim." Reaching into his inside pocket he pulled out a sheet of folded paper. It was obviously time we were getting down to business. "You followed the intel leak we had, I take it?"

_Ah, so that's what it was about. _Knowing I'd been tailing him all day on this very subject I suddenly felt inexplicably grubby.

"Yeah."

"Responsibility for the theft is still unresolved." He unfolded the paper to reveal a photo. "We've been unable to trace them. This is the only image we have." Handing over what was clearly a CCTV image of two of the three thugs in hoodies he added, hopefully, "Wondered if you'd be good enough to run it through your databases?"

That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Knowing what I knew I was absolutely certain that, if I gave him any help at all on this one, he would put two and two together when it came to my old friend Veronica and come up with seven but would see it as four. He already suspected I was up to something (_I wish he would tell me what!_) and, if – make that when – he finally identified her he would find her links to me and my employer and that would just prove everything in his eyes (and, to be fair, if positions were reversed that's exactly how it would look to me, too). So I lied to him. Looking away so he couldn't read my face I gave the picture a cursory glance and replied evenly,

"As of today, intelligence sharing protocols between the US and the UK are under review." It wasn't a _complete _lie – the idea had been floated a few weeks back in Langley but nothing had come of it yet – but I hoped he would buy it. Folding the paper up and handing it back I finally turned to face him, adding something that was true. "The chiefs are too worried about their situation with the Russians and I would bank on that being permanent if this deal goes through."

The only response I got was a measured look. He clearly didn't quite believe it but probably didn't feel like he was in a position to question me, either. He finally broke our gaze and tucked the picture back into his pocket, turning to stare out over the river again. Nothing more was said by either of us for several minutes and to any casual observer we would have looked like two strangers sharing a bench but totally ignoring each other. I was getting the weird impression that Harry was actually depressed about something, an emotion I hadn't seen from him since his life had imploded so spectacularly in the mid-eighties, and it was extremely unsettling. After another couple of minutes I was about to succumb to temptation and ask him what was going on when he threw a sigh and got up.

"I have to get back – the powers-that-be have been screaming all day and I haven't finished debriefing my team yet. Thank you again for coming." We shook hands and I watched him walk off into the darkness, leaving me very, very uneasy. Not just because he appeared so down but because I suddenly wondered if, by refusing to help, I had just made him as suspicious as I would have if I had admitted what I knew.

He was long gone by the time I subconsciously shook myself back into the present. Having initially planned on walking back to my hotel, I was now too dispirited to bother so I hailed a cab for the short ride back. It was somehow appropriate that the heavens had opened up and it was absolutely pouring with rain by the time we got there.

The next day things got even worse. Word got around that one of Hal's technical specialists, a youngster called Tariq Masood, had been murdered late last night. In a very old fashioned, Soviet way: stabbed by something containing a very fast acting poison and dying on the footpath outside Thames House. My first reaction was to wonder what on earth the boy had uncovered. Whatever it was, it had been fatal.


	6. Chapter 6

**6. Grosvenor Square, London. Two days later. Mid-May 2011.**

We had a couple of days grace after that. The Brits didn't – something was up, judging by the way Thames House was buzzing yet again – but it didn't seem to be related to my immediate mission so I wasn't overly interested. Ilya was continuing to spend the majority of his time in meetings, mostly relating to the partnership but also at the Kaspgaz offices; Elena was apparently lying low, indulging in exclusive spa treatments and hairdressers; Sasha was at work when he wasn't shadowing one or other of his parents, although his boss, Arkanov, seemed to have vanished and Veronica had dropped out of sight as well.

Our techies had started to come good, though. They had somehow pulled CCTV footage of Veronica, after she had re-emerged from Camden and tracking her to a meeting in a seedy area of south London, where she relieved the hoodies of their booty but then disappeared in a taxi and we lost her until she turned up at her current home, significantly later that evening and without the laptop. It had occurred to me to wonder if she had planted the file on Martha Forde in the time that she had the machine: it wasn't impossible but I doubted it, somehow, I suspected that particular file had just been extremely bad luck for Five but pure gold for Veronica's employers. So we now had proof that she was behind the theft but still didn't know who for. Or not directly: the tech-heads had finally tracked that phone call of hers. Straight back to Mother Russia and we now had people in Moscow identifying the receiving end. They assured us we should have a name within 24 hours so I left them to it.

Brontee and her team had continued uncovering little gems as well. It turned out that Collison had done more work for the mysterious Hamet Fasli than we had first realised and that they had last met up in Prague two weeks before the hit on Gavrik. Both had returned to their home cities, after which a large amount of money had lobbed into Collison's Swiss bank account _via _a very circuitous route from another account in the Cayman Islands. An account that was owned by a shell company which was owned, by way of another couple of shell companies, by a trust that belonged to Hamet Fasli.

That seemed to have confirmed that link so the team had gone to work on Fasli and, apart from realising that, although he was a _bona-fide _Chechen war-lord, his real job was as an international fixer for everything from illegal arms supply to mercenary armies to hit-men, had eventually uncovered another long-standing history of business relations with another familiar name: Veronica Duran, under one of her aliases. It was an interesting thing I'd noted about Veronica: her background was as one of the most deniable of all assets of one of the most secretive of the British intelligence services – it wouldn't have surprised me to find out that even Harry had no idea of who she was, as she had told me once that her time in Six was under an assumed identity because she was actually spying on them for DI – and she'd done time on a few exchanges with Mossad as well but, ever since she had been free-lance she had been in the habit of leaving little clues to her identity in the jobs she did, almost as though she was playing a larger game of catch-me-if-you-can. As far as I had ever been able to work it out, she did it because it appealed to her sense of humour and this was presumably another variation on the theme. There was no trace of money, or none that could be found, between the pair of them but there had certainly been an intense flurry of phone calls between North Ossetia and London, about six weeks ago. The UK phone had been a pre-paid number that had since gone dark but it had been purchased, with cash, from a kiosk near Veronica's home. That was probably as close as we were going to get but it was looking extremely likely that Veronica had hired Collison to do the job, using Fasli as a middle man. That phone call of hers on the night of the reception just continued to increase in importance…

Initially, nothing more of much interest had turned up on Elena's past but the same couldn't be said for her BFF's circle. It was no surprise that Alla Zykov's older brother, Mikhail Sergeievitch Levrov, was ex-KGB but he appeared to have been a member of a particularly shady branch that had come under the direct command of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and so had answered first to Leonid Brezhnev, then Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and, finally, Mikhail Gorbachev. It was common currency at the time that they were, essentially, the General Secretary's black ops and hit squad and had been particularly busy with the latter during the reigns of Brezhnev and Andropov, which probably explained by Ilya would have nothing to do with them. For all his own questionable behaviour at times, Ilya was well known to have loathed that particular branch of his organisation.

During the same period, Mikhail Levrov's career had undergone a meteoric rise but it had stalled under Gorbachev and the whole mechanism had officially been disbanded when the Soviet Union finally collapsed. Levrov and a couple of his cronies, including his brother-in-law Yuri Zykov, popped up in the mid-1990s as consultants on internal security to the new Russian government, only to have the pin pulled on their very lucrative business by Putin when he was director of the FSB in the later part of the decade. No reason why that had happened, although there were rumours that Levrov had trodden on Putin's toes one time too many when they were both in the KGB. In any case, Levrov's business had only had a slight hiccough: soon after being closed down by Putin they had re-directed their attentions to the Middle East, just in time to move in on the fall-out from the second Gulf War in Iraq. As a result, Levrov had retired from the business, a very wealthy man, ten years after starting it up.

That was all well and good but Levrov had retired from business, not from life. Instead, with Zykov he had started up an ultra-right wing, ultra-nationalist political party called RussiaFirst which was one of those xenophobic creations that turn up in every country and had become particularly popular around the world since 9/11, their platform being mostly Russia for ethnic Russians and a return to the golden age of pre-soviet imperialism. Blatantly anti-Muslim, they were vociferously anti-Western and equally obvious about their loathing for the two-ringed circus currently being played out by Putin and Medvedev. Sadly, they were growing in popularity at an indecently rapid rate, particularly among the young. No doubt helped by Levrov's smooth talking, charismatic nephew, Pavel Zykov. A nephew who had been blooded in the mess that was the siege at Beslan, seven years ago, during his army service, where he was rumoured to have been an overly-enthusiastic part of the group firing Shmel thermobaric rockets into the school. A nephew who had, after Beslan, disappeared into the maw of the _spetsnaz, _emerging a couple of years ago to take on the public role in RussiaFirst.

For some reason Yuri Zykov and Mikhail Levrov were ringing very faint bells for me but I couldn't place where or how. Something else I would have to let percolate through my memory banks for a while. In the meantime, Raul's team had continued observing Ilya and looking into his more recent background. Apart from the known relationship with Aslan Ulyanov there was exactly zero evidence of any other personal link to Chechnya and definitely not to Hamet Fasli or any of his organisations, although Kaspgaz was certainly present in the area. So he was coming up squeaky clean on that front again. However, there were other observances which were starting to make me wonder about my Question 1 again. On separate occasions over the past couple of days, Ilya had been involved in closed-door meetings with William Towers, various hangers-on and, firstly, John Sawers, the Director-General of MI6 and then Jonathan Evans, the DG of MI5 and Hal's boss. I wondered how much _he_ knew of that side of the negotiations and what he thought of it. Nothing good, I could guarantee that. If, as it appeared, this deal was as much about governments sharing resources, including intelligence, as it was about business then it would be sticking in his craw and just about choking him, exactly as it was doing to me. I was really going to have to metaphorically gird my loins and tell my own boss, although she would go ballistic. Not that there was anything either of us could do about it if London was really, seriously, about to start sharing intel with Moscow. Looked at dispassionately, I could see the attraction for both parties but the prospect still made my skin crawl so it may well explain part of whatever was eating Harry.

Tallulah had found out a couple of interesting things. The first was that, around the time Hal had been pulled out of his enquiry, an old comrade of ours, Max Witt, had died from an overdose of his medication. Max had been an old Berlin hand even back then and had been kicking around that city, on and off, since the late 1950s. He had also been the main go-between that we had used to keep in touch with Elena. Another coincidence? I thought not. The second thing was that the current flap inside Thames House was something to do with a nuclear threat from a known anarchist who had recently returned to the country from Athens. When she had dropped that pair of pearls in my lap this morning I couldn't believe my ears. If I gave any credence to the concept of the Fates I would have wondered what the Hell Harry had ever done to them to be copping such a hammering but at least the second pearl explained why he had been rarely seen for the past 24 hours, despite the round-the-clock surveillance. He would be tied up in endless meetings, I could guarantee that, but I could also guarantee that he would not have dropped whatever was going on with the Russians.

I was still wondering if he knew any more about what was going on than I did when the morning briefing broke up and everyone disappeared back to their work. I took my time returning to my own office, running through the usual list as I did so.

_1. The partnership._ Okay, I'd changed my mind. It wasn't just business, it was clearly much deeper and more political than that, especially if the security services of both countries were about to join forces. Could we do anything about it? Probably not without ticking off both sides and we were already unpopular enough. I'd try to bat that one back into the Boss' court.

_2. Any link between Harry's return and Ilya?_ I was starting to think so, at least in part because my gut was starting to get very vocal about the idea that the whole lot of us were being moved about like a bunch of pieces on a chess-board. It wouldn't surprise me if Ilya had asked for Hal to be involved. They might have loathed each other in Berlin but I also knew they deeply respected each other's abilities. Mind you, I also wouldn't have put it past Gavrik to have pulled Harry into the whole show for the sole reason of showing off. His other weakness, apart from Elena, was that he did like to think he had one up on the rest of us and as a filthy-rich oil oligarch he certainly had that on both Hal and I! Although he wouldn't realise just how much we despised how he had got where he had, no matter how squeaky-clean he now was.

_3. Sasha._ Now that was still a puzzle. I was convinced that he was here because mommy wanted him to be. However, those birth certificates were still puzzling me. The same gut was telling me that Elena wanted him here for some other reason than just keeping her company. She had to have been involved in the certificates – her signature was on both as the registrant – so obviously she still wanted a hold over Harry and what better way than to continue the fiction of Sasha's parentage? But to what point? Protection, in case she needed to get out of Moscow? That would only happen if Ilya turned on her but I had a feeling that wouldn't happen. I'd always suspected that he probably had an inkling of what was going on between her and Harry in Berlin but, if he hadn't done anything then it was unlikely he would do anything now. It was more likely that he'd been protecting her all these years from the ramifications of her actions likely to be enacted by his own side. So why else? That thought I'd had about KGB involvement in the certificates still hadn't let me go so I would have to follow it up and work out, first of all, who else in that organisation may have had the chance to be involved and what they would get out of it. Whoever it was, they were playing a seriously long game.

_4. The mysterious assassination attempt._ I'd reached my office by this time so sat at my desk with a sigh and stretched back in my chair. Well, we now knew that Collison had almost certainly been hired by Veronica Duran _via_ Hamet Fasli and it was looking very likely that Veronica had done so on the behest of someone in Moscow. Someone who was close enough to the Gavrik family, or had inside access, to know their movements, not only in coming to London but when they were likely to go public on that visit. And, possibly, someone who could manipulate Ilya into requesting Harry's involvement. I hated to think it, but the first name that came into my head was Elena. Another thought, even more out of left-field and incredibly unwelcome, was to wonder if my feeling of being a chess-piece was real. Had I been manoeuvred into position as well? I was the only other person who had been seriously involved in those events in Berlin: I had identified Elena as a potential asset and had done some of the groundwork which had allowed Hal to so swiftly conclude the deal, and we had both used her to get information over those three years. Talk about being chilled to the bone… I would set Brontee on to finding out where the intel that had got me over here in the first place had actually come from.

_5. Harry_. Freaked out by something. Max Witt suddenly dead (I had a nasty feeling that had been organised). Hauled back to work from suspension probably as a result of a request by Ilya only to have an assassination attempt on Gavrik happen within a few days. Meeting up in secret with Elena while accusing me of still running her. Having a laptop stolen which, fortuitously (I still didn't believe the contents of that had been organised by Veronica, for all I wouldn't put it past her, either), contained the identity of an MI5 mole inside Kaspgaz. A laptop stolen by Veronica Duran and somehow got to an extremely embittered former employee of Thames House who had the skills and desire to use the information to stage an apparent attack on Five which was really an attack on Ilya and the agreement. Turning up at a meeting to ask the CIA for help identifying people he probably could have sorted out himself but which could, equally (I suddenly and belatedly realised), have been a silent cry for help on another front. Elena. He thought I was still running her but he knew there was no love lost between her and I and that we wouldn't touch each other with a barge-pole after the events in Berlin in 1984. Even if she didn't know for sure, she must have suspected I'd had something to do with Harry's non-appearance at Treptower Park that day to pick up her and the boy. Although I'd never wrapped my brain around that concept, either: for the safety of all concerned, they would not have been able to have anything to do with each other so she would have ended up a lonely single mother in a foreign country, removed from everyone and everything she knew. She would have had to have been very, very desperate to even consider it and yet I suspected at the time that she wasn't and events over subsequent years had proven that suspicion correct. So what was the point of it? Something to do with the fake birth certificate, no doubt, so, presumably, something to do with the same long game. However, to get back to the immediate game, he was under the impression that she was still being run and he had chosen me as the prime suspect. Apart from Max, who had only been a go-between and not privy to most of what had happened, there had only been me, him and Elena, so he didn't have any choice on suspects, as he knew he wasn't still running her himself and he wouldn't consider her, not without irrefutable evidence, because he was still largely blinded to her real character by her role as the putative mother to that son he had so desperately wanted at the time. And I knew I wasn't running her. Which only left Elena, spinning stories about being back in the game, presumably at our request. But why? _Why?_

I stared up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling for a while, examining cobwebs and idly wondering why all the money was always spent in the reception areas of buildings like this while the workers were crammed in unforgivingly-lit dog-boxes like this one. At lease I was senior enough to have scored a window and my eyes turned that direction for a little while, watching the leaves of the trees outside wave gently in the breeze. Such meanderings were pure avoidance behaviour, I knew that, so eventually I sat up and checked my in-tray. A bunch of documentation requiring assessments, recommendations and signatures and, at the bottom of the pile, a small packet with my wife's hand-writing on it. The thumb drive! About time, I'd been chasing the damned thing for days but it had gone astray in the internal mail. Well, better late than never. However, before I got into that I had better set down my thoughts, not only on the agreement but on what I was beginning to suspect was going on behind the scenes and spooking my old buddy in the process.

I'd managed to get some preliminary summaries down before lunch when my peace was shattered by a phone call from D'wane. He and his crew had continued tracking Elena's movements and this morning she had headed out, with Sasha, to the National Gallery. Nothing unusual there, apart from the fact that it was only Sasha that accompanied her, there was no sign of the usual body-guard. What was unusual was that she didn't linger the way she usually did but instead made her way, slowly but purposefully, to the gallery containing the well-known painting of the execution of Lady Jane Grey. She had picked up a guidebook on the way in and, once in the gallery, took a seat in front of the painting, perused it and the guide for a few minutes and then sat, quietly, apparently contemplating the art-work. Sasha had gone off in one direction, seemingly checking out the other visitors (and looking straight through D'wane in the process – the boy really wasn't as good as he thought he was); shortly thereafter, a woman had appeared from the opposite direction and sat on the other end of the seat. Ruth Evershead. She said something to Elena without looking at her but what was really interesting had happened next. Elena reached out to pick up her guidebook again, which was resting on the seat between the two, and left behind a tiny bag – one of those fancy little fabric gift-bags so beloved by the ladies, according to D'wane – which Ruth then casually picked up. Intrigued, D'wane had sidled closer, expecting one or the other of the women to leave but they didn't move. Instead, they continued speaking, although still not looking at each other – they might almost have been strangers discussing the painting in front of them but they weren't: they were discussing Hal. At a very personal level. D'wane didn't know what to make of it but he'd noted one comment from Elena: she had said something about not being able to expect trust from Harry because he couldn't even give that to himself.

_What was that damned woman on about? She of all people knew that, once he had given his trust to someone he was almost too trusting in some ways…_

D'wane was still talking so I refocussed. The women had exchanged measuring looks but said no more before Sasha returned and D'wane decided it was safer to move away again, even if it was only towards the next group of paintings where he could continue to listen in while earnestly scribbling notes in his small notebook. He couldn't hear much of what either woman said but Sasha hadn't exactly been keeping his voice down. Apparently he'd been expecting Hal to arrive and wanted to know where he was. Ruth had said something in reply, obviously explaining (_I would have thought it was obvious – far too dangerous for that pair to be meeting up in public. Didn't the FSB teach their kids anything these days?) _but he wasn't really listening. Instead, he came out with another comment that grabbed D'wane's attention and he quoted "when Harry finds out about the messages he comes to me. He owes us that." The group had split up after that and gone their separate ways, Elena to lunch at the Savoy with Ilya, Sasha and Ruth back to their respective offices.

After he rang off I took a few minutes to muse on what he had just seen. Elena handing something over to Ruth for Harry and Sasha, a junior FSB officer, making an outrageous demand of the Head of Counter-Intelligence for MI5. The something was presumably the messages that Sasha had referred to – I had a sudden flash-back to the tiny scrolls of paper that used to be passed to and from, _via_ Max Witt – but were they historic or modern? If they were historic then surely there would be nothing to "find out about" so clearly they were modern. Did that mean Max had been passing messages on again, between Hal and Elena? But Hal thought it was me and Elena clearly thought it had been him. Or, with everything I had been putting together over the past few days, she wanted him to _think_ she thought it was him… The next question was whether she had manoeuvred him into thinking I was part of whatever was going on. This was getting more Byzantine with every passing moment and, to be honest, I was beginning to feel like a rat in a trap. But I still didn't know _why._

As an escape and for some fresh air I headed out to the café for some coffee and to grab a take-out panini for lunch. On the way back, I spotted the girl again. The Eurasian one that was a _doppelganger_ for my eldest daughter. The first time I had seen her had been the week before last, in the lobby of my hotel as I left for work one morning. I had been stunned because she looked so much like Paige that I thought it was her, somehow turned up for a visit without telling me. Petite, with dark hair down to her waist, large almond eyes and high cheekbones, she was even dressed in the same style – extremely expensive bohemian. On that occasion I had almost called out to her but she disappeared down a side corridor just as my phone went off. I didn't think any more of it but then I'd seen her for the second time, while I was walking to meet Hal at the river and she had crossed the street ahead of me. By that stage I knew it wasn't Paige as I'd spoken to her the night before and knew she was in the middle of completing a major project for school and wasn't going anywhere. Today, she was on the other side of the street, walking insouciantly along with a bag slung over one shoulder and wearing large sun-glasses but it was definitely her. As this was the third time in the past ten days that I had seen her and being in my current state of mind, I decided that was about three times too often for a city of this size. She was following me and it was just her misfortune that she was the spitting image of my eldest and thereby caught my attention when otherwise she wouldn't have. I would get the CCTV footage pulled and have one of the kids run some facial recog on it, see what they came up with so that was the first thing I organised when I walked back into the office. Then it was time to sit down and re-acquaint myself with all the old data stored on the memory stick.

Hours later I hadn't come up with anything we didn't already know and I was about three-quarters of the way through the information on the thumb drive. Mind you, it hadn't helped that I'd been interrupted by phone calls from Langley, throwing another little chore at me that I had no desire to fulfil: there was some drama going on with our European colleagues about yet another request to start sharing intelligence and the boss wanted me to go and smooth some oil on the waters some time over the next few days, in the interests of international co-operation, and to prevaricate on the sharing thing at the same time. Christ, that was all I needed, to have to play politics with a bunch of supercilious Eurocrats, right when I was starting to get close to what was going on over here. I objected strenuously and finally told her our suspicions about the intelligence sharing that was about to start – if it hadn't already – between the Brits and the Russkies but it wasn't enough. Apparently I had the time to go and play diplomat at some point fairly soon, whether I thought so or not.

I had just got off the latest of those calls and was standing at the window, stretching my aching back – too much time sitting on my butt without any exercise to counter it – when there was a soft knock at the door. Not one of the children, then! I turned to see Tallulah Zanon enter the room, looking tired, and I realised another day had got away from us. It was the end of her shift in the field and she was coming in to report on another interesting little tid-bit. She had just come back from following Hal to a meeting with Sasha Gavrik. He had been to one of his normal meetings at Whitehall but instead of returning to Millbank had been dropped off on The Mall and headed at a brisk pace towards the Duke of York Memorial, where he had then slowed and headed up the stairs to where the towering column stood. By this point Tallulah, thinking she had been pushing her luck for too long, let one of her other team members take over the close surveillance but had still been within viewing range when Sasha arrived from beyond the column. The pair of them headed back down the steps, more slowly this time and clearly discussing something; the lass following them had closed the gap and walked past in time to hear Hal say something very much like _'you've already killed your friend to keep this secret, you don't want to continue down that route, believe me.'_ They had stopped at the bottom of the steps and stared at each other for a moment, both blinkered to the crowds of tourists walking by but our lass, absolutely staggered, had used the momentary crush to stop and fiddle with her phone, pretending to take a photo with her back to them; and heard Harry continue on with _'Sasha, Elena's secret is safe. I'll take care of the rest. You and I, our paths need never cross again.'_

_**What?**_ What darned secret? And then it hit me. Oh, holy Jesus, Sasha must have found out about Elena's past activities with us in Berlin. The business side, anyway, I doubted it was any more than that otherwise things would have been considerably uglier: the kid had a reputation for not being able to control his temper and lashing out when he was crossed. _**Shit.**_ That would explain why he was shepherding her around to meetings with Hal at the theatre and Ruth at the gallery without appearing to question it. So, whatever his mother was up to, he was complicit in it. Anyway, he had walked off, Harry watching him, before suddenly turning around and coming back to ask Hal why he had come in person when he could have sent "that woman, anyone". Harry had just replied that he had no particular reason and then Sasha had finally gone.

"Sir?" Tallulah's question broke into my thoughts and I looked up to find her watching me, puzzled.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Is there some link between Sir Harry and Sasha Gavrik? I wouldn't ask had I not watched Sir Harry finally walk off with something that almost looked like heart-break on his face."

I should have known she would pick it up. Hal was still choosing to believe that Sasha was his but I wasn't about to break his confidence and tell her that so I just sighed and responded,

"We all go back a very long way, Tallulah. Maybe he's as sorry as I am to see the kid end up in the same ugly game as the rest of us."

She knew better than to ask any more, just inclined her head in that courtly, Southern Belle manner of hers and bid me good night, leaving me to think about what had been said. Then I remembered the earlier comment: _"You've already killed your friend…"_ Anatoly Arkanov might have been his superior officer but he had also been close to Sasha since they had done their initial training together as teenagers and he hadn't been seen for days. Not since he had been tailed by D'wane to that theatre meeting. Dear God, let me be wrong about this one: Arkanov had somehow got suspicious of Elena, which was why he was following her that day and Sasha was protecting her by following him. Presumably Arkanov had seen her meet with Harry, Sasha realised it and dealt with the matter. And, by the sounds of it, Harry knew all about it.

Well, damn me. The labyrinth I was trying to navigate through just got darker and half-filled with sludge. A sludge that was starting to stink. Elena up to something, dating back to the 1980s, her son drawn into it and now stained with the blood of his friend, Ilya apparently oblivious to the lot, Harry drawn in by his past association with the family and Yours Truly, the third corner on the Berlin triangle, observing from the outside and feeling totally helpless for the first time in decades. I would have to finish going through the memory stick tonight and then start another attempt to draw the threads together.

Not here, though. I'd been stuck inside under the fluoro lights all day and now the twilight was calling me outside so I packed up my laptop and headed out to walk home, dismissing the offer of a car from the front desk. It was clearer, warmer and a little lighter than last time I'd been out, heading down to the river, and there didn't seem to be anyone following me tonight but I wasn't in the mood to dawdle so it didn't take long to get back to the hotel. Not in the mood for company, I ordered room service, rang Gian and Ravenna while I was waiting for it and got back to the memory stick after dinner. This pearl was finally unearthed in the second-last file I opened. Scans of some scribbled notes from 1986 about something I'd completely forgotten.

Ilya had been promoted and moved to Dresden to run the KGB desk there in early 1986. Soon thereafter, Elena had been arrested and taken in for questioning while on a visit with Sasha to her elderly grand-parents in Leningrad. Ilya had dropped everything and disappeared back to the USSR before returning a week later with a cowed wife and confused son in tow. At the time I'd done some fishing and a few months later came up with some leads on what had happened. She had been hauled in by another branch of her husband's employers on suspicion of being a foreign agent. A branch better known as a hit squad. That branch run, at this point in its history, by her best friend's brother, Mikhail Levrov, and her friend's new husband, Yuri Zykov. Not that I'd known anything about that connection at the time but now it was like a light-bulb going on.

In 1986 I had questioned what it was about because no-one, as a rule, ever came back from an appointment with that crew but she had. At the time I had put it down to Ilya's influence, which was probably still right, but now it seemed like something else entirely. Especially when combined with those two birth certificates and Elena's links, since childhood, with the Levrov family. When the Gavrik's had upped stakes and moved to Dresden I had wondered if it was at least in part because Ilya had uncovered her link to Hal – I'd never been able to accept that the KGB _didn't_ know what was going on – and was getting her away from the temptation of his constant, unpredictable, visits to Berlin but now, with this little revelation, it looked like other powers had been at work as well. Levrov would have been in a position to get the fake birth certificate into the records in East Berlin and had deliberately pulled her in while in Leningrad, then let her go, but the endless question (why?) still existed in both cases. The certificate had to be to do with establishing that link, and possible future hold, over Harry (who had clearly been going places in both Five and Six even then) while the latter was what? A test of Elena somehow? Or of Ilya's devotion to her and his ability and desire to protect her, no matter what she did? And, on that front, Ilya would have known who was behind it, so why didn't he do anything about them, then or later?

It was nearly mid-night by this stage and my poor old brain was back to hurting again so I updated my summary file again, backed up the file to the central server, and went for a shower and bed. God, I'd be glad when this was all over and I could go home again.


	7. Chapter 7

**7. London. Next day.**

Well, I didn't have much of an opportunity to get it over and done with the next day. I managed to get an hour or so in on reviewing the data we had yet again and beginning to scribble some notes trying to identify the threads that needed to be tied together but after that the day mostly went to straight to Hell. Tallulah called in sick – no wonder she had looked so tired the night before – but I wasn't too worried about that, she said she just had a cold and I knew her team could carry on with both the surveillance on Harry and snooping around trying to find out what was going on inside Thames House. The boss kept on nagging me about the Eurocrats but had also had time to consider what I'd told her the day before and was starting to spit venom over that as well; however, she felt that we had to get hard evidence (_just what do you think we've been trying to do over here for the past week, Ma'am?_ was my immediate thought but I managed to keep my mouth shut) before she could escalate the news to her superiors and start planning some sort of counter-move, so at least we now had her official blessing for what we were doing. As onerous as the job now being "official" would be! The Eurocrats themselves had extracted my name from somewhere and I spent the day avoiding as many of their phone calls and emails as I could but still spent far too much time dealing with them. And we had a visiting delegation from our friends in the Bureau that I got dragged into for God knows what reason so next thing I knew it was almost the end of the day yet again before I finally got my life back to myself.

I was back standing at my precious window, wondering whether it was worth the effort of getting back to my thread-tying or if I was better off going home early for once and chilling for a while, when Brontee breezed in. No, she didn't knock first and I was too tired to even think about commenting! Brandishing her i-Pad she didn't waste any time.

"Sir, we've identified that woman you think is following you."

That made me prick up my ears and I turned to join her at the desk as she lovingly tapped and stroked the screen. Honestly, the way Gen Y relates to their technology borders on the indecent, sometimes… The photo that popped up on the screen was definitely her. Obviously older than Paige (despite that young lady being almost-14 going on 38) she was otherwise frighteningly similar. Turns out she was English, born in Hong Kong to an English entrepreneur father and a mother from one of the well-to-do local Cantonese families, her name was Philippa Tucker and she was a former Special Branch cop who had been free-lancing for the past few years. By the time Brontee informed me that Veronica Duran was one of Pippa Tucker's main employers I was past being surprised. It just seemed right and as a result this rat heard the hinges on his trap starting to creak as it was about to snap shut.

I sighed, squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and asked Brontee if anything else had happened that day. Her reply was,

"Not much that is directly concerned with the issue at hand." There was nothing out of the ordinary on the Russians and Sir Harry had only been seen once, attending a meeting, along with glamour-puss, with some sleazy expatriate Australian businessman who was known to make mega-bucks from trading on other people's misfortunes, including, back in February, those poor souls at Fukushima. No-one could get close enough to hear what was said but it was short and sharp and left the businessman looking rattled. Whether coincidentally or not the nuclear threat from the anarchist seemed to have come to a head later in the afternoon but that was about all.

Again, I thanked her for her efforts and, as she turned to leave, considered that I would have to recommend her for promotion after this – and the rest of them, come to think of it, they were all going well and truly above and beyond the call of duty on this exercise. I decided to answer the call of the great outdoors again and went to shut down the laptop when I realised Brontee was still hovering by the open door.

"Is there something the matter, Brontee?"

She blinked, hesitated and then gently closed the door, coming back to join me at the desk.

"The geeks in cyber-security have been tracking some unauthorised incursions into our databases over the past few days, Sir."

When she didn't say any more for a few seconds I prompted, almost knowing what her answer would be.

"Have the hackers been after anything in particular?"

She sighed regretfully.

"Yes, Sir. Information on you and your career. Especially from your time in Berlin."

The floor actually felt like it moved beneath my feet and I rested a hand on the back of my chair for a moment to reassure myself that the world wasn't falling in on me, on all of us. Closing my eyes momentarily all I could hear was white noise as my brain tried to short-circuit itself before Brontee's worried tones registered again.

"Are you okay, Sir?"

"Yes." I looked at her, not knowing what to say next, when she said it for me.

"This is connected to the Gavriks and this partnership thing, isn't it?"

I couldn't deny it.

"I believe so, young lady. I don't suppose the geeks have found out who the hacker is?"

She shook her head, blonde curls bouncing in time with her movements and making her seem full of energy but I suddenly really looked at her and realised she was as tired as the rest of us. This was supposed to have been a quick, easy job so what had happened? God damn Elena Gavrik and her machinations.

"No, Sir. Whoever it is, they're very, very good. All they can say is that the source seems to be somewhere inside the UK, probably even here in London." We stared at each other, both thinking the same thing until she dared to say it. "This is way outside of Duran's area of expertise so it's probably not her. It's unusual for hackers like this to be based here or at home so the crew suspect this is coming from very high up. Possibly even the intelligence services. Either the locals or the Russians."

I nodded, slowly. Oh, it was the intelligence services, alright, but not a foreign one. It was MI5. More specifically, it was Section D. I even figured that I knew what they were digging for but I also knew they wouldn't find anything to connect me to Elena, or not since 1984. Now I'd gotten over the initial shock it all made sense. Of course Hal would put someone onto digging into what I'd been doing since then, believing what he did and despite knowing perfectly well most of my movements for the past 30 years, as I did with him. With positions reversed, I'd do exactly the same thing. I could even make an educated guess as to who it would be doing the hacking for him: the only person he seemed to really trust these day, the one for whom he had, to all appearances, committed treason not so very long since. It still made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach, though, that things between he and I had degenerated to such an extent. Elena had damn near destroyed our friendship a quarter century ago and it looked like she was having another go at it now. For an instant I wished I had pulled the gun on her and Sasha that day, instead of Harry, and used it.

Brontee was still watching me, silent, waiting, so I straightened up, touched her briefly on the arm, thanked her again and told her to go home, we would follow up on it in the morning. Apart from anything else, I didn't want to do anything that might tip Hal or his lady friend off. Looking relieved, Brontee skedaddled and I returned to packing up the laptop before I followed her to the exit. I caught a ride back to the hotel where I locked the machine into my safe, got changed and headed out for a walk through the crowds who were doing the same thing in the waning golden light of evening. Usually I would head for the river but this evening I couldn't face the memories it would bring so I turned the other direction towards Hyde Park instead. I'd read something somewhere recently that said, in a nutshell, that London had long since ceased being an English city and was, instead, one of the great international ones instead and the faces I saw that evening just confirmed the observation. People from all corners of the planet gravitated to this old town, for as many reasons as there were nationalities. Some only ever made it the once, some (like me) were perpetual returnees and some made their life here, for better or worse. Most were inherently decent and good, some were not and a small few were pure evil. The trouble, of course, was that you couldn't tell one from the other by looking so that the unprepossessing grand-father crossing the road ahead of me could be a mass-murderer and the elegant woman who had been getting into a car near Marble Arch might just as easily have been a psychopath.

Once in the park I slowed down and enjoyed the intense greenery of late Spring, the drifts of flowers and watching the people as they went about enjoying their evening, content in their total ignorance of what really went on in the shadows of their world. The evening was mild, with a chill edge, and if I had been in the country the first of the stars would have been sending out their early, faint sparkle but instead, here in the heart of an ancient city that had seen the best and worse that humanity could do and had so far survived the lot, what we got instead were the diaphanous con-trails of high-flying jets starting to turn every gentle shade of the palette, from the palest apricot-pink to soft lavender against the bowl of a sky that ranged from silvery blue near a horizon glimpsed through trees, palaces and high-rises to azure with the merest hint of indigo at the apex.

At least the fact that I was drifting off into artistic metaphors meant that I was finally relaxing so I continued walking, ending up by the Long Water where I found a quiet bench away from the main thoroughfares and made myself comfortable, watching the colours slowly leach away in the twilight. I believe I actually managed to think about nothing for the first ten minutes, then spent a while wondering what Gian and the kids were up to before, inevitably, reality pushed its way in again and I let my mind idle over the bigger picture, rather than fixating on the details for once. That picture led back to Moscow, I was certain of that now. Someone over there was acting as puppet-master to the Gavrik family, MI5 in the shape of Hal and the CIA in the shape of Yours Truly, moving us all around almost at will to gain their end in a game that at least two of us hadn't known we had been playing for the past three decades. And that was a truly frightening thought. Despite my joshing Harry about it at the time I hadn't meant it when I'd said Elena had recruited him, not _vice versa_, but now I was really beginning to wonder if I'd been right all along.

On the water a pair of swans glided by, elegant in their spotless white feathers and neat red beaks, unperturbed by the mind-games of humans. I envied them their serenity and the simplicity of their lives, all the while knowing that it was almost as much of a façade as any other life. They were paddling like crazy under the surface to maintain their existence as much as the rest of us were, only at least they spent their lives in the present while we humans could never do that, we wasted the present re-living the past and worrying about the future. In my case it had been nothing but history ever since that damned phone call back in Langley and I was getting well and truly sick of it. Were the tentacles of the long-distant past never going to let me, or any of us, go?

I could feel my blood pressure rising so I got up again and continued walking. The light was fading faster now and the crowds were thinning so I, too, eventually turned and made my way back to the hotel, feeling oddly dislocated from the world around me. Was it possible to be a rat in a trap and a pawn in a chess game at the same time? I supposed so because that was how it was feeling right now.

It was dark by the time I returned and now the chill had turned to cold but that wasn't what caused me to come to a sudden halt less than a hundred yards from the front door. That was a chill of a different kind. The kind that shot up your spine with no warning and for no apparent reason. The kind that my grand-mother used to say meant that someone had just walked over your grave. Only in this case it wasn't a grave yet but why did I feel like someone had just signed my death warrant?


	8. Chapter 8

**8. The following day. Greater London. Late May 2011.**

The next day started out quietly enough but got a whole lot more exciting as it went on. Despite my mis-givings of the previous evening I'd managed to get a half-way decent night's sleep and so was feeling a bit brighter than I had been for the past few days when I got into the office just after seven. The team weren't long behind me, including Tallulah, and we got through the morning briefing in good time. I put the fear of God into the techies about finding out who Veronica's phone call had been to, as I'd been promised an identity yesterday and it hadn't been forthcoming, then dismissed everyone to their tasks, holding Tallulah back for a few minutes to bring her up to date with yesterday's discoveries. She was no more surprised than I had been to hear about the hacking and promised to do a quick look into Miss Evershed's background – "Just for interest's sake, Sir," – before leaving me in peace to go and catch up with her own team.

The previous evening I had allowed my mind to wander, as I'd been trying to do for days, over the bigger picture of what was happening and jotted down a few notes before I hit the sack, so I hauled them out and had another look now. The recent activities appeared to be aimed at the destruction of the nascent relationship between Britain and Russia, for reasons unknown, but was that all there was to it? It seemed too simple but was I trying to complicate things too much? Maybe, but maybe not. If the target was to derail the partnership before it got going, wasn't it a bit of overkill to drag Hal and MI5 (and me) into it, just to muddy the waters to cover their own involvement? Again, maybe, maybe not. Whomever the person was behind it, they were in Moscow, was close to the Gavrik family, had power, influence and money, loathed the idea of any sort of official relationship with the West and, quite likely, had been playing a very, very long game with their current activities being just another step along the way to their final ends. I stared at the two names I had circled at the end of my ruminations and wondered which one, exactly, was running the show. It could go either way on that front but one thing I was almost sure of now was that Elena Platonovna Gavrik was their representive in London. Convincing Hal of that, though, would be akin to making a successful ascent of Mt Everest. Without oxygen. In Winter. Bare-foot. One of that man's greatest strengths was also one of his greatest weaknesses: he loved his children, above and beyond almost anyone I knew and, in the case of Sasha, whether the child was his or not. Everyone thought he was a cold fish, bloodless and emotionless when it came to close relationships, but I knew better. I'd seen him with both Catherine and Graham, as well as Sasha, when they were babies and since, and knew he would do anything within his power to protect all of them. Christ, he'd even adored Paige the only time he had seen her, as a toddler, on one of his rare visits to the US. Unsurprisingly, like every female I knew who'd met him, Paige had adored him back just as much!

I sighed and sank my face into my hands. Knowing all this in my gut was fine but I was going to have to get a bunch of evidence together before I even thought of having a quiet word about it with Harry. Of all the uninspiring thoughts I'd had lately, that one just about took the cake. I was staring at my laminated desk top, wondering how in Hell I was going to do that without having my head taken off, with him being in the odd mood he was in, when the phone rang to break my reverie. It was Raul. He and D'wane, and their teams, had swapped targets today and he was now tracking Elena. D'wane had followed Ilya and Sasha to an early-morning meeting at the Home Office, a meeting also attended by Hal and Ruth (presumably: that pair had been followed by Tallulah, back on the case like a blood-hound, to the same location at the same time), which had lasted about an hour before everyone dispersed, the Brits back to Millbank, briefly and only to pick up a vehicle, and the Russkies splitting up, Ilya returning to the Kaspgaz offices and Sasha to their exclusive hotel, which was where Raul had picked him up half an hour later, heading out with his mother.

Now, what happened next was another piece of the puzzle. The pair had headed towards the West End, where they were dropped off in Regent Street and, as soon as the car disappeared, had hailed a cab and set off to the river in a run-down part of town, near the old East India Docks opposite the folly that was the Millennium Dome, where they were now in a meeting. With Hal and Ruth. I sighed, silently. What _were_ they up to? Raul had been joined by Tallulah and they were now standing at a broken first-floor window in a derelict building, watching the meeting going on in the shadow of skeletal, rusting girders and old, red-brick buildings, unable to get any closer as there was absolutely no-one else around and nowhere to hide. The meeting didn't last long – it broke up as we were speaking – and Raul had to go, leaving me to consider the latest instalment in the saga. Not only was it Harry and Elena but Sasha and Ruth had been drawn into the web as well. Only this time, according to Raul, it looked for all the world as though they were conspiring together.

Another one of those chills chased itself up my spine. This was going to end badly. Who for, I couldn't say, but it was inevitable that the events of three decades before were, somehow, about to wreak their vengeance, probably on all of us.

All of this was clearly getting to me. That was not the sort of thought that I would normally entertain but it was hardly the first of its ilk to cross my mind lately. It was mid-morning and I was feeling deeply disturbed by Raul's call so I headed out for my morning coffee. Even the normal banter with the café staff didn't lighten my mood and I was still scowling at the world, which was overcast and cold, when my mobile rang. There was something faintly familiar about the number that came up but I really didn't recognise it so hadn't expected anything when I answered. Even if I had expected anything, it certainly wouldn't have been hearing the dulcet tones of Veronica Duran on the other end.

I was so surprised that I could hardly say anything – not that I had much of a chance – but came to such a sudden halt that a couple of back-packers walking behind me almost cannoned into me. They muttered something at me as they passed but I didn't hear it, I was too busy listening to Veronica. She didn't waste any time: she had something for me and wanted to meet in half an hour. Not so far away that I couldn't make it: a quiet corner of another one of the city's green lungs. She rang off before I could do any more than agree to the meet. If I had been disturbed before it had now turned into something that was edged with a feeling I had never been particularly familiar with – fear. Whatever was happening was accelerating out of anyone's control, let alone mine, and it was accelerating towards a cliff. Was it a coincidence that Veronica had phoned me this morning? I sincerely doubted it and the only way I was going to find out why was to go and see her so I stopped staring at my phone as though it was a rattlesnake about to strike and headed back to the office at a pace faster than the dawdle I had been using before.

As soon as I walked in the door Brontee hauled me aside.

"Sir! The phone that Veronica Duran used for those calls to North Ossetia just went live again—"

"I know," I interrupted, more tersely than I had intended, continuing more gently. "The call was to me." She looked as stunned as I had felt, china-blue eyes widening in disbelief. "She wants to meet up and, before you ask, I've got no idea what she's up to but we don't have much time. I've got bad vibes about this whole thing so I want you to get some gear together for me while I organise a vehicle. We've got about ten minutes." We continued to talk as we walked, at speed, towards our part of the building although she peeled off before we got to my office and I was on the phone again before I even sat down, organising a car with fake number plates – the last thing I wanted was to be identifiable by anyone involved while I was meeting Veronica – and a driver while at the same time texting the rest of the team to let them know what was happening. Then Brontee returned with the surveillance gear I wanted and it was time to go. Stopping on the way to pick up a little bit of extra protection. Just in case. I didn't trust Veronica as far as I could throw her and I knew, from past experience, exactly how damned lethal she was with a weapon.

The drive didn't take long and we were just entering the narrow road, overshadowed by towering green, when my phone gently chimed, twice. Messages from both Tallulah and Raul. Correction, the _same_ message from both of them. They were in the same park as I was, with their targets. My chest tightened as the unfamiliar fear returned but I didn't have time to get myself in too much of a knot because we were slowing to a stop by the shadowed kerb, at the appointed meeting spot and time. In my suddenly heightened state of observation, I visually searched our surrounds while we waited for Veronica to appear. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. The walls of green lent a slightly claustrophobic air to the setting (or maybe that was me) and the area was quiet, apart from a woman in a long, dark overcoat standing on the footpath on the other side of the road, about fifty feet away. After completing my scan my attention returned to her, for want of any other life in the area, and I suddenly realised that I recognised her. Ruth Evershed. The faint dose of fear suddenly ratcheted up and, for the first time in a very, very long time, I just wanted to get out of there. It was too late: my driver, watching in the rear-view mirror, warned me that my visitor had arrived just as she leaned against the door next to me. I slid the heavily tinted window down but she didn't even give me a chance to say hello before she launched in, as though it had only been last week that we'd dealt together, instead of three years.

"Have you worked it out yet, Jim?"

Jesus, she'd done it again. Coming out with the last thing I would have expected. Keeping my face straight I answered bluntly,

"I was rather hoping you'd tell me."

She smiled, slightly predatory.

"Oh, I couldn't do that, it would give the whole game away. But you will, I have faith!"

This was surreal. Not too many people had ever had me totally confused but, right at this moment, that's exactly what I was.

"Well, that's very touching, Veronica, but—"

"I have to go," she said abruptly, the smile leaving her face, "but I do have one thing to say to you. I like you, Jim, so watch your back. The cutest kittens often have the sharpest claws."

Without a further word she straightened up, turned and walked away the way she had come, towards the thickest of the greenery behind us. Typical Veronica: drops some cryptic crap in your lap and then leaves you to it. Although I had to admit that, cryptic though she may be, she had never lied to me so I just had to work out what she meant or, correctly, _who_ she meant, although I supposed that was fairly obvious. I let the window glide silently shut and told the driver to get us out of there, unobtrusively but fast. The car eased away from the kerb and moved sedately forward, past Ruth and towards the exit. I was careful not to appear to be looking at her as we passed, although I ensured the high-definition camera was pointing that direction, recording everything as it had been since we arrived, but it didn't matter in another second, anyway, as the trees on the right gave way to open space, grass leading down the slope to the water, where a tableau of people appeared to be waiting for something to happen. Another woman, a red-head in a blue overcoat, sitting tensely on a bench who looked a lot like Elena Gavrik; a young man in jeans heading up the slope who was the ghost of Ilya Gavrik; and, standing on the edge of the water in the distance, a man whose fair hair, stocky build and military bearing gave him away every bit as much as his Savile Row suiting. Sir Harry Pearce. The hinges on the trap creaked again and this rat felt the board under his feet start to vibrate as the people passed out of view. They were definitely in on this together. Whatever 'this' was.

I didn't have to wait much longer to find out, as my phone rang before we'd got another 100 yards down the road. Raul. Breathless and whispering.

"Someone has just taken a pot-shot at Elena Gavrik, Sir."

The trap finally sprang and I knew it would be almost impossible to get out of it, at least as far as Hal was concerned. I had, very professionally and totally unequivocally, been set up. By Veronica, on behalf of her employers. I hoped they were paying her well because, by God, once I got out of this and back to the office, I would sign her unofficial death warrant. She had better start running, _now_, because she would need every second's lead that she would get and even then she would be lucky to make it out of the country today. I had no doubt at all that she was the one who had just shot Elena—

"Sir? It looks like they missed. She appears to be okay."

God _damn_ it. Veronica never missed, unless she wanted to. Not only had I just been set up, I had been specifically set up to be seen by Thames House, talking to her, a few moments before there was an assassination attempt on Elena Gavrik in front of her son and MI5. So not only was I, personally, implicated through our shared Berlin past but my entire organisation was implicated as well because I was fairly certain that Five would be well on the way to identifying Veronica by now, along with her links to us, Chechnya, Collison and the whole damned shooting match. This was way bigger than just bringing down the partnership: whoever it was not only wanted Hal drawn into their game but the CIA as well and, it suddenly struck me, maybe even Ilya as a representative of the Russian government. I wasn't going to wait until we physically arrived back at the office; instead, I rang Brontee and got her to start getting the paperwork together, then sent a text to Tallulah, as my Section Chief, telling her to get someone else onto following Hal and to high-tail it back to the office, and lastly rang the boss in Langley. We were both succinct. Veronica would experience first-hand the joys of extraordinary rendition and be on US soil (if she was lucky – we had other options) within 24 hours.

The following hour or so was busy, organising people to track down Veronica and the internal paperwork to get her out of the country on the first available military flight. By the time I got through all that I had cooled down again, enough to get back to the business at hand. Thinking about what had happened at the park made me nauseous, not only because it meant that we were all pawns in somebody's game but because Hal, of all people, seemed to be swallowing it, unquestioned. His guilt over Sasha – I sometimes wondered, in my more uncharitable moments, if it was guilt for believing he was the boy's father and deserting him or whether if it was actually guilt over the relief he must have, very deep down, felt at not having to be responsible for protecting them, his real family and himself, for the rest of their lives, from Ilya and the KGB had the extraction gone ahead – was allowing him to be blinded by whatever tales Elena was spinning him and, as a result, I was trapped. I would be damned if I went down without a fight, though, and I would take both of them with me if I had to.

Instead of inspiring me, the thought depressed me. Despite what I was seeing, I really didn't want to believe it. Not of Harry. I was going to have to get everything we had together and quietly take him aside to go through it, see if I could change his mind. At some level he must have doubts, surely? We had been friends for so long and knew each other so well that I _knew _there had to be some little warning bell ringing, somewhere, in the back of his brain. I had to try, at least, otherwise we were all going to be destroyed, for the sake of a plan that, ultimately, had nothing to do with us.

I'd left the car and driver on call, suspecting the day wasn't over yet, but after my gloomy inner monologue I decided I wanted to avoid the office for a while so had grabbed the vehicle again and headed off for a quick lunch at a small place I knew near the river. It didn't work very well as a distraction but at least the food and the view were good and I was beginning to look forward to the afternoon in a slightly better frame of mind when my phone rang. It was the boss, informing me I finally had a meeting organised later in the afternoon with the Eurocrats to discuss intelligence sharing and do my diplomat turn. She also warned me that I would probably have to attend another meeting in Brussels or The Hague tomorrow or the next day to calm a few ruffled feathers. Well, there went looking forward to the rest of the day! I could only think of one person who would be a worse choice than me to go and play nice with a bunch of politicians and that was Hal. Normally, under the same conditions I would be on the phone to him by now, moaning without restraint and letting his lacerating wit restore some of my humour but not this time. It was a strangely lonely feeling.

I had barely tucked the phone back into my pocket when it rang again. Assuming it was the boss again, dropping more delightful little chores in my lap, I didn't check the number but kept walking as I answered. It was Ruth Evershed, wanting to meet up to talk about Harry because she was seriously worried about him. Well, well. I didn't believe a word of it but would go anyway, see what she had to say, so I returned to the car and told the driver to head towards the Tate Britain and the meeting point at the Millbank Millennium riverboat pier.

I got there way too early. Unable to settle back and wait in the car with the thoughts I had racing around inside my head I got out and went for a walk through some nearby shops, trying to distract myself. Eventually I spotted an elegant silk scarf that I knew Gian would love so I picked that up and continued looking around for some jewellery to go with it, finally settling on a pair of vintage Art-Deco earrings. Glancing at my watch I realised the meeting time had arrived so set straight off for the pier, with no chance to drop my purchases off with the driver on my way through. As I approached I could see her waiting at the far end of the pier, clutching a cup of take-out coffee and staring at the river surface, mossy brown-green as it slid silently by below an eggshell-blue sky rapidly filling up with clouds. No ferries were due so we were the only people there and I watched for a moment from the top of the gangway as she fidgeted nervously with her cup and tucking strands of her dark hair behind her ears every few seconds. Heaving a silent sigh I walked towards her, swinging my shopping nonchalantly and hoping I didn't look as nervous as I suddenly felt. Deciding to go in on the front foot I called out, as lightly as possible as I approached,

"So what is it with you guys and this hanging out by the river?" She looked up, startled, and I met a pair of clear, pale blue eyes for a second before she dropped her gaze back to the metal decking for a moment and then back up to me, as though building up the courage to talk. Keeping on the attack I risked voicing my suspicions (largely confirmed when Tallulah had told me just as I slipped out for lunch that, before she transferred to Thames House, Ms Evershed had spent years at GCHQ) that she was the hacker, while smiling gently to take any sting out of the words. Despite having never met her before, I suspected this woman wouldn't take to being brow-beaten and I would get more out of her with a softer approach. "Now I know you've been looking into me, Ruth, way back, too. And I want to know why."

She went pale and dropped her eyes to the deck again with a barely audible,

"Shit." _Yes, Miss, you've been caught with your fingers in the cookie jar,_ I thought, realising why she was an analyst and not a field agent. She had a very expressive face and every single thing she was thinking was flashing across it as she looked away down the river and finally said nervously, "It, it was a favour to Harry." She eventually glanced back up at me, eyes beseeching me to understand and deliver her of any requirement to say any more. I couldn't help her, of course, because I had no idea of what I was supposed to be understanding. Yes, I knew what she was looking for but understand why they thought I was doing it, why Hal was choosing to disbelieve me in favour of Elena? No way, honey. Instead, I just asked,

"What the Hell does he think I'm up to, arming Cornish separatists?"

If I was hoping the attempt at mild humour would relax her it didn't work. Instead, she just shook her head and looked desperate.

"He's been betrayed too many times, he, he's seeing – enemies – everywhere." Her eyes focussed on me again for a moment and went on, still hesitant. "He begged me to look into you. And all I found out was that you two are friends." She dropped her gaze to the river yet again. "You trusted each other. I felt—" she shook her head, as though reluctant to say the words, "—sorry for him." There was silence for a moment as I took that in, trying to decide if she was telling the truth or just embroidering it for my benefit. Taking a couple of breaths she looked me in the eye. "You're the one person he could always rely on. And now—" I suddenly shook my own head, breaking the gaze and looking away as something like a knife sliced through my soul. All of this was just confirming what I was starting to think, that one of my oldest buddies had finally lost it. Another one gone to mis-trust and paranoia. Finishing her sentence for her I murmured bitterly,

"I'm just another monster under the bed, huh?" I glanced down at her, hoping for a negative response but all I got was silence. She was staring down at the river again, avoiding me. Feeling sick again I added, "Yeah, I've seen that happen to a lot of good people although I wouldn't call the men in white coats just yet. Berlin wasn't all wine and roses." Hell, that was the understatement of the century and only Hal and I knew exactly how much of an understatement it was. The events of that era, the things he and I had done, alone or together, for the sake of our countries wasn't something either of us consciously thought about too often but it had coloured our thinking ever since, neither of us would deny that. It suddenly occurred to me to ask her something, find out exactly how much Harry trusted her. "Did you see the file on Treptower Park?"

Expecting another deer-in-the-headlights expression I was surprised by the steady gaze that came back. There was steel in there after all but then there would have to be, to have attracted Hal's attention in the first place. He always had preferred strong women to doormats, we both did.

"There was no file on what happened at Treptower Park." I nodded, unsurprised. There wouldn't be, if he had any sense. She was talking again, in that low, musical voice. "But Harry told me."

Ah. Well, there you go. I wondered if she realised exactly how much he trusted her, telling her that because, apart from me, I don't believe he had ever discussed it with anyone and the last – the only – time we had talked about it was in 1985 when we had been forced back together in a joint black op and had had it out over a drink or six in a dive near the Berlin Wall. Throwing another sigh I could feel only sadness as I finally answered.

"Yeah, I would never have done it." Looking back at her I added, "I hope he knows that. I don't shoot my friends. Family, maybe. Not my friends. I don't know what he told you but he was out of control, attempting to extract a top level asset without a shred of authorisation, a KGB officer's wife, for Christ's sake. All because he knocked up Elena, felt bad about it. I had to stop him." I'd said more than I had intended, albeit remaining slightly selective. If I'd hoped for more from her as a result, I didn't get it. Instead, she just acknowledged, bluntly,

"You were doing him a favour."

"Yeah, he didn't see it like that then." Suddenly I'd had enough. This felt like some sort of charade, just like this morning, and I couldn't take it any more. Looking at her I said, "So, stop digging up my back yard, Ruth. I thought the Brits were meant to be more polite." I forced a smile, turned and walked back up the gangway, trying to work out what that had all been about. She was worried about Hal, that was genuine enough (and she wasn't alone, so was I) but something hadn't felt right. Why organise a meeting to say something I could have worked out for myself? And now she knew I was just as worried about him, only worried that he was going off on the same slippery slope that he had been on way back in 1984, when she was probably still at school and totally ignorant of our world, and that it was endangering the lot of us. But she could probably have worked that out for herself, too, especially after the digging she had been doing…

Something made me look back towards the pier as I got into the car. Ruth was standing at the entry, watching me. And that made me wonder even more. Had this been another set-up? First, I'd been dragged to that park for nothing, apart from being seen meeting Veronica just before she took a shot at the bench Elena was sitting on. Now I'd been dragged to a river pier for a meeting that essentially said nothing. With one of the participants of the morning's exercise. What the Hell was _that _about? My driver interrupted my thoughts with a question about our destination – to the meeting with the Eurocrats or back to Grosvenor Square? Checking my watch I groaned and directed him to the meeting: we'd just about make it in time, if the traffic didn't get in the way. In the meantime, I was just going to have to put the events of the day to one side.

That proved easier said than done. The meeting was terminally boring, a bunch of bureaucratic fat-cats more interested in getting one-up on each other than on considering the matters at hand. Two hours in, my phone chirped discretely so, as I was just about at the end of my patience for one day, I took it out and checked who it was. Hal. Relief and suspicion, in equal measures, shot through me as I opened the message. It was his turn to request the pleasure of my company, it seemed, and, like the previous two, I was given next to no time to get to the meeting point. Greenwich, this time, at the old Royal Naval College. To get there in time I was going to have to move, now, so it was with absolutely no regret that I terminated the meeting and high-tailed it out to the car. By this stage I didn't expect the meeting with Harry to be even remotely convivial but at least it might give me a chance to front him about what, exactly, was going through his mind.

The lowering clouds of earlier in the day had turned to rain by the time we arrived. The driver dropped me off close by the eastern building and I made a dash for the portico, wandering down to the river end at a more sedate pace, trying not to draw the attention of the few tourists who were braving the weather to look around the buildings. There were only a couple of them where I was and they soon disappeared, leaving me to my contemplation of the large pillars, heavy, black metal lanterns and the view of the river through the trees. Despite the rain it was oddly bright and the fat, heavy drops fell lazily, shining, to the pavement while I watched. After a few minutes I turned my back on the rain and took a few steps into the centre of the portico, checking my watch as I did so. Hal wasn't late, yet, so I put my hands in my pockets and was about to do another length of the walkway when I spotted him approaching from the far side of the paved courtyard, seemingly impervious to the weather and in a hurry. The way the day had been going I wasn't about to pre-suppose anything so, as he approached, I said as casually as I could,

"You pulled me out of a meeting with Belgians for this so let's make it long, my friend." Normally that would have at least raised a sympathetic grimace but this time all I got was a frozen stare as he stopped in front of me.

"Friends don't last long in our business, Jim. If they don't die on you they turn against you. Somehow you and I seem to have managed to hang on."

_Oh, I see. I was still in the bad-books, huh?_ Well, I'd try to turn that around because we weren't going to get anywhere like this. I tried a smile and answered,

"Almost makes you suspicious, doesn't it?" Again, there was no response, just that burningly cold stare from eyes that were completely opaque. Uneasy, I added, "That was supposed to be a joke." I had barely finished speaking when he cut in.

"I'm going to give you 24 hours, Jim, to search your conscience, come clean and do the right thing."

_Come clean about __**what**__? _My frustration and bewilderment were almost at boiling point but I managed to keep a lid on it and, instead of yelling at him like I wanted to, just shook my head.

"You're shaking the wrong tree." For a moment I though I saw hesitation on his face so I pressed on, carefully, and finally came out with the question I'd been wanting to ask for days. " I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you should tell me what I've done."

What came next both stunned me and left me with a sort of grief mixed with rising anger.

"Ilya, Elena yesterday, Tariq Masood. Were you ordered to take the life of my officer when he found out what you were doing or was it a spur of the moment improvisation?"

I couldn't help it.

"_**What**_?" He could _not_ believe I was responsible for killing the young man? Who had put that idea in his head? Or was Ruth right and he was now so out of touch with reality, warped by what had happened over the past year with a final polishing of paranoia courtesy of Elena Gavrik, that he was willing to believe anything of anybody? As long as "anybody" didn't include that God-damned Russian red-head herself, of course, the untouchable mother of a son that wasn't even his. He hadn't responded to my questions so I gritted my teeth, bit my tongue and did every other cliche I could think of to not reach out and knock some sense into him, instead grinding out, "I have stood by bad decisions of yours in the past, Harry, and suffered for them. Please don't make another one." I suddenly felt like we were back in Berlin, 27 years ago: suffering was too mild a term for what we had both been through in that era, personally and professionally, and I had hoped we would never have to return there but it seemed I was wrong. Just how wrong I was about to find out. Without batting an eye-lid or raising his voice he finally said,

" 24 hours, Jim, and I'm coming after you," then turned on his heel and walked off, leaving me with that unfamiliar mix of dread, fear and disbelief. He wasn't getting away with it that easily so I called after him, wanting to make sure I'd heard right,

"Coming after me?" He turned back, an expression of fury glimpsed on his face and I suddenly realised he was deadly serious so I pointed out the obvious, refusing to let him see how far sideways he had knocked me. "Huh. Harry, you forget who I work for."

Within a few steps he was standing in front of me.

"Then I suppose I'll have to come after them, too."

With that he walked away again, leaving me desperately trying to process what had happened and equally desperately worried for him and for all of us. The anger was real, I had no doubt of that: Harry, in a red-faced with steam coming out of his ears temper, looked fearsome but was fairly safe; in this perfectly composed, burningly cold and obsidian sharp temper he was very, very dangerous. But what the Hell was it all about, Hal? What had driven you to a paranoid panic so intense that you were willing to take on the CIA? He hadn't been kidding when he'd said that and it had left me chilled, contemplating what might happen next. Damn Elena Gavrik, damn her to the far sides of Hell. Burning for eternity would be too good for that one. I wasn't going to let her get away with it, though, it was well and truly time to get everything together in one file, join the links and present them to my old pal in such a way that he would not be able to ignore the truth.

As his figure dwindled and disappeared through the diamond drops of rain I allowed the greater hurt to register for a moment. I could understand, in a way, why he thought I may have had something to do with the fake hits on the Gavriks (although I still had no idea why he thought I would bother with that sort of poppy-cock when I had all the resources of my organisation at my beck and call) but the direct, unarguable accusation that I had killed one of his immediate staff members? How could he even begin to think that? I knew he was wound up but it was starting to look like he really was losing it and it was breaking my heart. After all these years I didn't want to see it but feared it was too late to avoid, for all of us.

Sagging back against the nearest stone pillar I let tiredness take over for a few minutes. For all I was spending most of my time flying a desk, this job was proving more exhausting than anything I had worked on for a long, long time. Probably almost since Berlin, only then I had youthful energy and adrenaline to drive me. Now, I just felt drained, sucked dry emotionally and physically and wanted no more than to pack up and go home. Except _that_ would be letting the other bastards win. There was no way I was going to let that happen. Glancing at my watch I realised it was still early enough to get back to the office so I pushed myself upright again and followed Hal out into the rain. There was no dashing this time because I didn't really care if I ended up looking like a drowned rat: after this morning's events I was a dead rat anyway, getting wet couldn't make me feel any worse.

It was peak hour traffic by this stage which, combined with the weather, made for a slow trip but I didn't care about that, either. Instead, I took the opportunity to stare out the window, not seeing the shop and house fronts passing by or the people huddled against the weather on the other side of the rain-streaked window but spending the time deliberately not thinking about anything. I was going to need a clear brain over the next 24 hours to pull all these strings together so this respite was very welcome, if all too short. Too soon we were back in Grosvenor Square, where I dismissed both driver and vehicle for the day and headed back to my office. Not that I made it there straight away. The crew all seemed to be back and were clustered around the techies' desks, intently discussing something, so I walked over to them and said quietly,

"Good afternoon, everyone. Any breaking news anywhere?" I thought I'd leave my own adventures for later, although presumably they knew because Tallulah or one of her team would have seen me meeting up with Hal. They all looked up, startled for a moment, before Tallulah stepped forward, composed as ever.

"Why, yes, Sir, we're glad you're back. In fact, we were about to call you." I sharpened my focus, suddenly sensing the air of suppressed excitement that I'd missed on my entry, being wrapped up in my plans for the next day. After a few moments I asked,

"Well, what is it?"

"We've finally traced that call of Veronica Duran's," said one of the techies, the girl whose name I'd never managed to remember.

"_And_?"

"It was to a number registered to Mikhail Sergeievitch Levrov. Head of the RussiaFirst political party."

The world moved under my feet again but this time it was accompanied by the soundless clunk of a major piece falling into place. Through Veronical we now had our proof that Levrov and his clique were behind the attack on the partnership and, along with it, an almost solid link to Elena Gavrik. I was still contemplating that when Tallulah spoke again.

"It gets better, Sir." I looked over at her, wondering what was coming next, as she drew Brontee forward. "Tell him, Brontee."

There was an almost feverish glint of excitement in the blue eyes as the youngster stepped up, took a breath and said,

"You remember you asked me to look into where in Moscow the original intel came from about the partnership deal?"

I looked at her carefully, suddenly almost too tense to breathe and replied slowly,

"Yes."

"It is from a source we have who works as a private bodyguard in that city. He is a US citizen, born in Serbia, and a former member of the Liberation Army in Kosovo. His current employer is Mikhail Sergeievitch Levrov but he has only been there for six months. Before that he spent two years working for Elena Gavrik."

Clunk. Another piece in place and with it a sense of absolute certainty that I had been completely set up to be here, in this city, at this point in time. And so had Hal. By Elena and her cronies. Still breathing carefully I closed my eyes for a second to let the realisation settle into my consciousness before opening them again to focus on those two young ladies.

"Very, very well done, folks. Do you have all of this in digital form?"

"Yes, Sir," they chorused, looking pleased, before the nameless one added, "We've already forwarded it all to you, Sir."

I suddenly grinned, buoyed by the success. Maybe we'd just turned a corner and we could start to see some light glimmering on the distant wall. Although I hoped it wasn't a train coming towards us from the other end...

"Thank you, ladies! You've just made my day." Looking around at the entire group I added, "Anything else?"

There was a communal shaking of heads around the room before Tallulah smiled, remote as ever, and asked,

"How was your meeting with Sir Harry this afternoon?"

I looked at her and smiled back.

"It can't have been you watching, so who was it?"

"One of our young agents, Tom Defoe. He shows great promise, Sir."

"I'm sure he does, Tallulah, otherwise you wouldn't have chosen him. Well, the meeting was – interesting – I guess you could say. He blames me for the hits on the Gavriks and for the murder of his technical specialist, Tariq Masood. He's giving me 24 hours to tell all and, if I don't, then he's coming after me. And all of us."

The shock rippled around the room like a Mexican wave with even Tallulah's imperturbable mask slipping a little. In response to the Chinese-whisper like "what?"s rustling through the group, I added,

"And this on top of being set up by Veronica Duran this morning to be seen talking to her just before she faked a hit on Elena Gavrik. Only now we know it wasn't Veronica behind it, she was acting for Mikhail Levrov. And, presumably, Elena herself." Another thought struck me. "Has anyone found Duran yet?"

D'wane eventually piped up.

"No, Sir. She seems to have disappeared."

"No. She's laying low somewhere, which means she's not finished yet. Put the pressure on, D'wane, we have to pull that woman in." He nodded his assent and was about to leave when I added, "Something else. Can we tap Elena Gavrik's phone, or Levrov's phone, or both? We need to see if we can get some evidence of recent, direct contact between that pair."

The techies brightened noticeably and I got a chorus of,

"Yes, Sir!"s out of them so I sent them scuttling back to their technology with a wave of the hand before turning back to the others.

"After today's events I'm going to start pulling everything together to prove to Harry what's really going on so I need you all to make sure you've sent me everything you've got, tonight. After that, please help Brontee in seeing what else you can dig up on RussiaFirst, Levrov, Zykov and anything you can get, no matter how tenuous, on Elena Gavrik's connection to them, even if you just brain-storm it for a little while tonight and then start fresh in the morning. We're going to need to work quickly on this one, just in case Hal follows up on his promise."

Bless them, they all took the fact that I'd just ruined their plans for the evening with equanimity and I left them to it, finally getting back to my hole in the wall and a chance to sit down with a cup of unimpressive coffee to sort out my documents into some sort of format that would be acceptable to my superiors. That took longer than I thought it would, between doing the front sheets for each section, appending all the appropriate files in their appropriate sub-directories, making sure the cross-referencing hyperlinks worked and trying to review it all at the same time. Fortunately, the rest of the crew hadn't had much extra to send through that I didn't already have but still it was getting on for midnight when Brontee sent through a list of ideas and preliminary findings just before sticking her head through the door to bid me good-night. That broke my chain of thought and, after she left, I stood up and went over to my window to examine the now-quiet streets, shining in the on-going rain under the almost colourless glow of the streetlights. Occasional splashes of colour, running like the irridescence of an oil slick, were provided by the tail lights and indicators of the few vehicles that were around and some poor chump, dressed in dull waterproofs with reflective stripes that flashed occasionally in passing headlights, was sitting on a motor-scooter off to one side, half-obscured under a tree. God knows what he was up to, sitting out in the rain at this hour of the night. Escaping something, or avoiding it, presumably...

My thoughts returned to the events of the day. It was fairly clear now that the meeting between Hal, Ruth, Elena and Sasha that morning had been about getting me to that park to be seen talking to Veronica before she took a shot at Elena, implicating me in the event. The question was whether Hal knew that was the purpose or not. Despite his words of this afternoon, or maybe because of them, I didn't think he did. Knowing what I now did about Elena Gavrik and Mikhail Levrov, it made more sense that Elena was setting him up, and Ruth, to think that I was responsible. Presumably she was still making out that I was running her, contacted Veronica, who contacted me, and then had somehow convinced the others to be there to witness the whole thing and irredemably indict me. But then what had the meeting with Ruth been about? Or hadn't they actually been able to identify me this morning? I hadn't got out, after all, Ruth wouldn't have been able to see me from that distance and Veronica hadn't exactly been in a position to stick around to confirm my identity for them. I had been stupid enough to not have the false plates removed from the car when I went out at lunch-time, so when Ruth saw me getting into it afterwards she would have noted it was the same vehicle and, well, there it was, all of Harry's suspicions proved and the CIA nicely dragged into the net. Although I still wasn't completely sure why. Yes, bringing down the partnership was part of it but, to go to this amount of effort, there had to be something greater than that at stake. Perhaps that something would reveal itself in the morning.

Tired and suddenly realising I was starving, I backed everything up to the network, packed up and headed home. In the car my mind wandered, like a tongue unable to leave an aching tooth alone, back to Hal. What had happened to him to turn him from the unflappable, brilliant maverick who approached his work with such unseemly delight that I had known for so long into this paranoid, deluded shell of a man? A man who was willing to believe the worst of anyone, including friends of 30 years' standing, with that one conspicuous exception. A man who was so focussed on what he _thought_ was happening, and so spooked by it, that he wouldn't listen to reason from anyone. A man who was so blinkered that he hadn't even picked up that we were following him, something, to my certain knowledge, that had _never_ happened before. Maybe Ruth was right. Maybe he had been betrayed once too often by that North/Bateman character a few months back and now he was seeing betrayal everywhere. Apart from where it was really coming from: Elena Platonovna Struchkova Gavrik. And why not her? The wrought-iron gates of my hotel came into view as I considered that question. I had a very strong suspicion that I knew the answer to that one and it was as trite and unbelievable as anything written in a soap-opera script. Despite his own doubts about his ability as a father he wasn't willing to admit to any faults in the mothers of his children. Make that mother. Despite the fact that Jane had played her own considerable part in the collapse of that marriage and, subsequently, in alienating Catherine and Graham from Hal, he wouldn't admit it, or not publicly, taking all the blame himself, and it was no different with Elena and Sasha. I wasn't sure what it would take to force him into seeing the truth; it woud be hard enough to get her knocked off her pedestal as Sasha's mother, at least until he saw those medical records, let alone have to admit that she had been comprehensively misleading him, all of us, probably from the start.

The car glided to a halt in front of the lobby so I thanked the driver, got out and sent her on her way, still thinking about the Gavrik family. Only this time it was about sons and their mothers, not fathers, and the realisation I'd just come to made my skin crawl. If Elena had been misleading Harry, myself and, come to think of it, Ilya for the past three decades or more, then she had been actively using Sasha since the day he was conceived. As a civilised man, let alone as a father, I found that concept almost impossible to comprehend and it turned my active dislike for the woman into pure, unmitigated revulsion. The boy hadn't even been born and she was already using him as a pawn in her filthy games.

As I stood digesting that thought, staring out into the wet, dark and bitter night, a flash of light caught my eye as a man dressed in dull waterproofs with reflective stripes rode past on a motor scooter, disappearing into the cold. So I was still being followed, then. That no longer surprised me. As I was watching Elena, her – Levrov's – people were watching me. And maneouvring all of us for the end-game.

A gust of wind threw a handful of rain into my face so I took the hint, turned my back and walked inside. If Hal was true to his word, tomorrow might well bring this whole sorry shooting-match to its sad and inevitable terminus.


	9. Chapter 9

9**. The next day. London. Late May 2011.**

It didn't. There was no sign of my old pal the following day, apart from his usual round of meetings. There wasn't much sign of anyone else, either. Ilya spent the morning closeted with government officials, Sasha in attendance, while Elena remained at the hotel. The Gavriks then enjoyed an indulgent lunch at the Dorchester, after which Elena disappeared back to the theatre to attend another ballet rehearsal and Ilya returned to his offices in the City. It gave us breathing space, though, and we made the most of it.

The weather had improved a little on yesterday, meaning it was still overcast and chilly but only raining in patches instead of all over so I'd walked to work. There was no sign of a motor-scooter tracking me and I hadn't seen my daughter's _doppelganger_ since that afternoon coming back with lunch but I was fairly certain that the young punk in the hoodie who cut across in front of me when I was half way to Grosvenor Square was the latest version of my tail. He was good, but not good enough – ducking and weaving between the pedestrians and traffic, now in front of me, now behind – otherwise I might not have spotted him. These people had to be private contractors working for the Russkies; if they were Five's, let alone ours or the FSB's, it would have been a lot harder to catch them out. Not that it mattered. I knew about them, they didn't know that I knew, which I figured made me one up.

The bad news for the day was staring at me as soon as I opened up my email. Notification from the boss, with appropriate follow-up confirmation emails, that I would be obliged to head to The Hague tomorrow morning, by way of a diplomatic flight into Rotterdam, for those high-level talks with the Eurocrats. To add insult to injury it was slated to be an overnight trip as well. Oh joy, 24 hours in Eurocrat Central, arguing with politicians and eating stodge. I could at least hope that they might have some half-way decent beer...

The good news was that my crew were all already hard at it by the time I arrived so, after gazing at the dismal news from my inbox for a little while, I interrupted them for a ten minute update before hauling my ass back to my glorified broom closet to pull out my files, both hard copy and digital, and get back to my analyses. In the process I found my list of questions and realised I hadn't thought about them for a few days so decided to make that my starting point for the day.

_1. The partnership. _Business, political, intelligence, probably even military eventually. A new world order of sorts, coming into being. Or, more cynically, a former global power, now down on its luck, cosying up to the next big thing in the hope it could recover some of its standing. The boss had kept on making noises about wanting to find a way to stick a spanner in its works but I really couldn't be bothered. Anyway, Elena and Levrov were doing their best to stick the spanner in for us.

_2. Any link between Harry's return and Ilya?_ Oh yeah. But not as I had first thought. Ilya would have enjoyed the prospect of having his old Nemesis working as his _de-facto_ body guard on this job but only after the idea had been put into his head somehow. Presumably by Elena. Not in so many words and without naming names but I had no doubt that she had planted that particular seed. Whether she, or Levrov, knew Hal's predicament at the time I had no idea but it really didn't matter because the request, coming from the Russian Minister of International Development, was never going to be ignored by the British Government. And, thereby, Hal was pulled right into the middle of things, exactly where they wanted him. Front and centre, the Berlin days causing friction with Ilya, implicating Five with that golden gift of Martha Forde and, through some cockamamie story that I didn't know the full details of, being manipulated into blaming me for everything as the ultimate smoke screen for the truth.

_3. Sasha._ That poor kid. I had no doubt, now, that he was here as a tool to control Hal through both guilt and love and to divert his attention from the truth of Elena's manipulation in the same way that she had been doing all those decades ago. Most disgusting of all, it looked like she and her buddies had been planning on using the boy for exactly that, one way or the other, since she found out she was carrying him, including inserting that fake birth certificate into the records. And that really put her beyond the pale. I wondered how she had drawn the boy into helping her now. She must have done something to make him kill his best friend to protect her and her relationship with Hal although I still strongly doubted that he knew about the personal side of the latter.

_4. The hit. _There had really only ever been one likely source for the information needed to pull that one off and that source was Elena. We now had a link between Levrov, Veronica Duran, Chechnya and Collison and now we knew the personal link between Elena and Levrov had been there for almost half a century. All we had to do was prove the culpability in that link relating to the current activities and that would come, one way or the other, fairly soon, I was certain of that. And that was another black mark against the red-head. Not only was she risking Sasha, she had also risked Ilya, not just now – there had been no guarantee that something wouldn't have gone wrong and ended up with him taking a bullet – but back in the eighties, when her faked arrest had forced him to raise Hell to get her back and even before then, right from the time she had started playing her games with us. There was no doubt on that front now, either, I was certain that she had gone out looking for a couple of dupes and she had surely found us.

_5. Harry._ What could I say? Betrayed once too often, this time by someone he'd looked on almost as a son, after uncovering a lie that had lasted almost 20 years; burying too much grief over the course of his adult life; stricken by guilt for three decades over another, older lie and unable to admit the implications of what that actually meant; now desperately clinging to whatever fragments of his ancient, chivalrous honour remained for fear of going under, it was really no surprise that he was finally falling apart. The real question was whether he was going to survive it or not and it seemed like I was helpless to assist, consigned by him to the role of active persecutor when I was anything but. I still had no idea what yarn Elena had spun, or what situation she had set up, to get him so forcefully on her side against me, but it was really too late to matter. I should just walk away but I couldn't. We were like soldiers who had been through the worst of battles together and were forever brothers-in-arms as a result. He had seen active service in that nasty civil war-equivalent that was Ireland; I had seen little of the same while I was a paratrooper, before I'd transferred to military intelligence, although I'd been on alert for both Zaire in 1978 and the Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1979, not long before Hal had spent six days inside the Iranian embassy during the siege in London, but it was still that shared history of seeing the depths that our own species could descend to that had bonded us from day one and everything that had followed since had just strengthened that. We might go years without seeing each other but, if one of us needed help, in anything, the other had always been there to provide it. Until now. Well, he may have temporarily abandoned me but I could not, and would not, abandon him. One of us had to stay sane through all of this.

Afterwards, gazing at my typed summary, I felt profoundly flat. The overall result of those questions was that Elena, Levrov and Zykov had, in all probability and for their own twisted reasons, been looking for members of the Western security services to either actively recruit or otherwise manipulate into being of use to them and Hal and I had walked straight up and knocked on the door. Because of the way things had panned out, Harry had been the one to get completely and comprehensively hooked and they were now reeling him in, using an imagined relationship to get him to believe I was behind the attacks on the partnership and divert his attention from the truth. What better way to achieve that than setting us against each other? We _were_ just pawns, being moved around to suit their ends. I could guarantee that for my own role, knowing now exactly where that confirmatory information had come from that had sent me hot-footing it over here, and I could guarantee the same thing for Hal, with the guilt they had carefully cultivated over the years regarding Sasha making it ridiculously easy for Elena to do whatever she wanted with him.

And what of Elena's husband? Another pawn, perhaps the ultimate one, along with his son. Had he been targeted as well, long before we had come on the scene? We would never know the answer to that one but I suspected – hoped – not. He had fallen at the feet of this glorious, porcelain rising star of one of the greatest dance companies in the world and Elena, being the egocentric creature that she was, would have lapped that up. A supreme manipulator, it would have been impossible for her to resist having someone potentially even more powerful than Levrov constantly at her beck and call. Her gamble on him had certainly paid off in the long-run. He had even risked his job, and possibly his life, protecting her from the suspicions her activities had stirred up and then by getting her back from an arrest that he didn't know was a set-up. And how did she thank him? By trying to destroy what would probably be the crowning achievement of his political career. She had misjudged how easy that would be, though: presumably they had assumed that Ilya would give up after the assassination attempt but that had been stymied by Hal and Ilya himself had shrugged it all off like water off a duck's back. If they had also assumed that those two old enemies would rub each other up the wrong way they had been proven wrong there, as well, despite trying to discredit Five and infuriate Gavrik by the handy revelation of a British spy in his inner sanctum. Killing old Max had presumably been designed to unsettle Hal, and had worked; killing young Masood must still have been for other reasons but would also have served the same purpose and been handy to implicate me.

And what about me? What about my role in this international debacle? I was indeed both trapped rat and chess piece, moved from one continent to the other by information that had been too good to resist (always Elena's _modus operandi_, come to think of it – feed your handlers solid gold information as a way of getting them to believe you and, by God, it had worked. Now, at least, I knew where it had come from: we had always assumed it was pillow talk from Ilya but now I could guarantee it had actually been from Levrov and Zykov) and then utilised _via_ Veronica Duran as the ultimate cover for their own activities. How, exactly, they had found out about the connection between me and Duran was a question that I would take great pleasure in putting to that young lady very shortly…

I stood up, stretched and moseyed over to my window, wishing I could actually open the damned thing and get some fresh air instead of breathing in recycled air-conditioning all day. Although how "fresh" the air would have been had I been able to was a moot point, I was in the middle of a fairly impressive conurbation, after all, so the air inside this room was probably less stale in some ways than that outside, for all it didn't feel that way. But then, everything was feeling stale today. Clearly, this operation had been going on for too long and I was almost looking forward to us all being placed into our final positions. My thoughts wandered back to Elena and her backers/superiors/whoever they were and it occurred to me that, although they had been fiendishly clever in setting all this up, they were also guilty of a series of major misjudgements, the biggest one being Ilya himself. They had clearly massively underestimated how tough that man was, which was curious. Zykov and Levrov must have known what they were up against – Ilya Gavrik wasn't a legend both inside and outside the KGB for nothing – but obviously they believed that Elena had more control over him than she actually did, which made me wonder what else she had, one way or the other, got her husband to do on her/their behalf over the years. They had mis-judged me if they thought they could move me around at will without my realising it. And they had even misjudged Hal in a way: Elena was obviously still under the mistaken belief that he loved her (_it had never been about you, lady, it had always been about Sasha)_ and that he would come running when she batted her eyelashes at him but it hadn't _quite_ worked out that way, not yet and not ever. Sooner or later he would get over his attack of the guilts come to the realisation of the truth and, if I had the slightest opportunity to point out a few things, that realisation would be sooner. Much, much sooner.

All of this was making me feel grubby, tainted by association and mis-use, so I decided to go and see what the children had come up with during the morning. They were all in, helping Brontee trawl through the targets they had generated last night, so I called a coffee break and got them into the nearest meeting room to go through their results. They had been identifying known supporters of RussiaFirst and I could feel my eyebrows climbing rapidly upwards as they went through the list so far. Prominent business people, artists, scientists, sportsmen and women and even politicians, not all of them in opposition, it was one Hell of a list and made me realise that what was happening in London was just part of a much, much larger picture. Levrov and Zykov had clearly been selectively garnering support for decades, even before the fall of the Soviet Union, and now had a spidery network that spanned most of the upper echelons of Russian society. These people were clearly powerful, but, fortunately for us, not nearly as powerful as Ilya Gavrik and his circle.

The irony of being thankful for the presence of my old Berlin adversary, who had thwarted me, and Hal, as often as we had thwarted him at the time, and his Dresden-based trainee didn't entirely escape me but I didn't have much of a chance to savour that thought as we all soberly considered exactly what we were up against here. I wondered how much Ilya actually knew about this particular group of his wife's friends: I could guarantee that he would be right up to the minute on RussiaFirst but did he realise how deeply Elena was entangled with them? Probably not. I suspected he probably preferred to believe that her main contact was her bestie, Alla Levrova Zykov, otherwise he would be forced to see the truth of it all as well and, like Hal, he wouldn't be prepared to go there. They were both under her thrall but in Ilya's case it was, presumably, due to genuine love, not obsessive guilt. And they would both kill to protect that boy.

I had just graduated onto wondering how much Putin himself knew about RussiaFirst and their activities – significantly more than Ilya, would be a safe guess – when Tallulah's perfectly-modulated tones broke my thoughts. She had clearly been reading my mind, judging by her question.

"Sir _(one of these days I would convince her to call me Jim!), _would it be a good idea to look a little further into the backgrounds of these two Russian gentlemen? I don't think we have uncovered everything, yet."

"My thoughts exactly, Agent Zanon. You and Brontee concentrate on that while you two—" I turned to look at D'wane and Raul "—continue digging up what you can on RussiaFirst. Not only looking for other members but see how far you can get into their systems, find out what their deepest, darkest policies are. I presume you've still got access to the translator?" They nodded. "You can keep using him; Tallulah is more than capable of continuing to doing the job herself for her and Brontee." Returning to the ladies, I added, "While you're examining Levrov and Zykov, see if you can find out any more about their relationship with Putin, both then and now. I suspect it might be edifying."

Everyone nodded again and, after I'd asked them to send me the latest data dump, the meeting broke up. Then I headed out to grab an early lunch before spending half the afternoon in a video-conference call with the Boss and a few other assorted big-wigs, sorting out exactly what I could and couldn't say or do with the Eurocrats tomorrow. By the time I was finished with that I would have been quite happy to have spent the rest of my day bashing my head against the nearest brick wall – it would have been less painful! – but decamped back to my closet instead and rang Gian. She thought I sounded stressed; I blamed it (not entirely untruthfully) on the Eurocrats; she just laughed and reminded me it would soon be over and that I could look forward to taking her shopping instead! She knew I'd groan at that, so I did, loudly, and we spent another few minutes in our usual banter before she had to go and I hung up, feeling more cheerful.

There was a pile of paperwork waiting for my attention so, re-energised, I dealt with it before returning to my summary files on the Anglo-Russian partnership. Once everything I had up to the minute was annotated and backed up so I took some time to do a little more mind-wandering, mostly around motivations this time. Russian motivations. They fell into three basic areas: Elena's, Levrov/Zykov and, for different reasons, Ilya's. Elena and the others were probably different aspects of the same reason but I was curious as to Ilya. Not about why he put up with Elena's double-dealing in the eighties (back to that old, four-letter word starting with 'L' again) but why hadn't he done anything about Levrov and Zykov either immediately after the faked arrest or later? He was a powerful man and didn't like to be crossed (well, neither did I and neither did Hal, come to that), both then and now, so it seemed odd. Maybe something would come up that explained it in the meeting this afternoon.

I was beginning to have an inkling of RussiaFirst's real motivations but would leave that for the moment, too, in the hope that something more concrete would turn up over the next few days to prove it, so that left me pondering Elena. Much though I didn't want to. I'd never seen the attraction with that one: beautiful, yes, but too chilly and self-absorbed, for all her surface charm, and then there was that sense of "off-ness", if there was such a word, that I'd always had about her. Something not quite right. That was why I had never trusted her, not completely. Well, maybe now I had finally realised why: she wasn't quite right because she was covering the fact that she was using us, not the other way around. And her motivation for it all? Revenge on the Communist social system for destroying her family? Probably but why continue beyond the fall of the Soviet Union? With that family background, an innate hatred of the regime that had brought down the glories of Imperial Russia was a given. Add to that the effect of growing up inside the cloistered, hot-house atmosphere of the Vaganova Choreographic Institute, formerly one of the most brilliant jewels in the Tsarist diadem that had been reduced to being a mouth-piece for the Soviets and no doubt fed endless stories on the glories of the past by her teachers, and it was almost inevitable that the hatred would combine with the sense of Tsarist superiority, to say nothing of her own raging egomania, to create a monster who believed, sincerely, that anyone who was not truly Russian, however she chose to define it , was an enemy worthy only of destruction. Now, it seemed, this monster had extended her talons well beyond her local sphere of influence, something she had obviously been planning for all along.

It was all sordid and tawdry beyond belief but a sad commentary on modern life as well. Everywhere, countries seemed to be drawing in on themselves and retreating to the perceived glories of the past, a retreat that included rapidly increasing fear and mis-trust of the other, whether that other was internal or external, and xenophobic hatred masquerading as patriotism or nationalism. Even my own country, great though it is, isn't immune and we certainly produce our own brands of monsters but would any of them go this far? Given half a chance, probably. That's why I had a job. And Hal. And Ilya. Only Ilya had it happening much closer to home than either of us.

As usual I could only think about this stuff for a certain amount of time before I started getting twitchy. Checking my watch I realised I was running out of hours to get everything that I was going to need tomorrow together – I wasn't likely to have time to do it in the morning – so I concentrated on that for a while, finished transferring what I needed to the i-Pad as I didn't want to have to haul the laptop around with me and then decided to go and pull everyone together for a quick meeting before sending them home early for once. They had all been working like Trojans for weeks and I'd ruined their plans last night so it was only fair that they got to go home early tonight. It looked like Hal wasn't going to follow up on his threat in a hurry and our intel said the partnership wasn't due to be signed for another week so we had time.

The boys had been busy, delving into the murky, foetid depths of an extremist organisation in all its glory, and the results were about as pretty as any of us had expected. It seemed they were a group who loathed anything and everything that they judged to be non-Russian and weren't shy about saying so. Any hint of foreign blood, any sign of belief in a religion other than Orthodoxy, anyone who didn't yearn for the return of Imperialism and you were on their hit list. Terrified in equal measure by Islam and Judaism, they also despised the West, particularly us Yanks and the Brits, as being weak, venal and corrupt and the East as being sub-human, even more corrupt barbarians, unbelievably even harking back to Russia's bloody, futile war with Japan in 1905 for support on that subject. And it appeared Africa was only good for sourcing slaves and minerals. Distasteful as it was, it wasn't a surprise. Raul said it got worse the deeper you dug, particularly earlier versions of the official RussiaFirst web-site and a few associated others, which they had dug up from on-line archived caches somewhere, but they had sent me the data dump so I could go through it at leisure. I thanked them and turned my attention to the ladies, with some anticipation.

They, too, didn't disappoint. They had been surprisingly productive in the space of a few hours, coming up with more background material on both Levrov and Zykov, mostly from the post-Soviet era, and a sheaf of stuff on their relationship with the current Prime Minister. Whatever uncertainty I'd had before about who was actually running the show, it was now obvious that Mikhail Levrov had been, and still was, the one with the power. Son of a highly decorated Soviet World War Two fighter pilot and his army engineer wife, it was unclear when his extreme nationalism had developed but it was certainly front and centre by the time the new Russia had emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union and had continued to grow ever since, although he had quickly learned the political expediency of either toning it down or talking it up, depending on which branch of the press he was talking to. Zykov had always been the follower and came from a family of musicians and artists who had never achieved much prominence, although they had incurred some favouritism by, firstly, being members of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Party and taking an active part in the Revolution of 1905 and afterwards continuing to fight with the Bolshevik faction during the 1917 Revolution. He had met Levrov early in their careers with the KGB. On his own he may never have amounted to much but provided valuable support to the other man and now his son, Pavel, was paying back the debt. Young, well-educated in international law and politics, media-savvy and charismatic, the son was proving to be the perfect connection between the old guard behind RussiaFirst and the younger generation of Russians, disaffected with the Putin/Medvedev circus under which they had grown up and yearning for something more, although they didn't know what, and the new, shiny face of this political party was proving to be particularly attractive.

The ladies had more but, in the interests of time, I told them to send it to me and asked for the briefest of summaries on the relationship with Putin. They hadn't been able to come up with a definitive cause, that was buried in, or deliberately expunged from, the Soviet archives, but something had happened somewhere in the 1980s between Ilya and Putin on one side and Levrov and Zykov on the other because there had been sniping between them ever since, although Putin had always won. It seemed there had been repeated attempts by the RussiaFirst founders to get back into a position to influence government, cash in on their connections, either financially or otherwise or advance their families but, on each occasion, they had got so far before being comprehensively trodden on by the former junior KGB officer who was now the _de-facto_ emperor of the country.

We could have sat there for hours going through the details but again I asked them to send me a data dump instead and then followed up on two questions of particular interest: firstly, had there been any contact between Elena and Levrov yet and, secondly, had Veronica Duran been tracked down. The answer to both was a negative so I confirmed the plans for the next couple of days (I might physically be enjoying all the delights that The Hague could offer but I wasn't going to be out of contact so they were to continue their observations on the Gavriks and Hal and report in regularly) and then sent them on their way. The young ones started to pack up but Tallulah stayed back, looking at me with that unfathomable cat's gaze of her until I gave way and asked her what she was thinking. She was worried about Hal's threat but I pointed out he would hardly try to lift me when I was in Europe and that we'd worry about it when I got back. She still wasn't happy and persisted.

"Okay, Sir, but what _about _when you get back? I know Sir Harry's reputation and I fear he _will_ act, sooner rather than later."

I guess I was touched by her concern so I tried to placate her.

"Well, Tallulah, if he's involved directly then you or one of your team will be there and I have every faith in your ability to watch and wait on what happens. He won't _do _anything to me, even in his current state of mind he's not that stupid, I'll probably just be up for some fearsome questioning. But he may find that the table gets turned because I really need to confront _him _about all of this. So please don't worry. If it continues to concern you, I'll wear a tracker, just in case he gets glamour-puss or one of the others to do his dirty work, although that's never been his style. That's one thing Hal, Ilya and I share: we prefer to do that sort of stuff ourselves."

She gave way, graciously if reluctantly and eventually they all scooted, chattering, cheerful and wishing me a good trip, and then I was on my own. Once this was all over, I decided I would take the lot of them out and we would do our best to annihilate the departmental expense account!

Heading back to my office I added the two data dumps to my laptop, backed everything up to the network, packed up and followed my juniors out the door. It looked like I'd caught my tail on the hop by leaving early but he'd caught me up again by the time I was walking through the wrought iron gates of the hotel. Not the punk in the hoodie, this time it was a lycra-clad cyclist instead. Possibly the same person from the motor scooter last night but his identity wasn't important. The fact that he was still there was. As I walked through the lobby I pondered that. When I had arrived here, all those weeks ago, I hadn't expected to be anything more than an observer and so hadn't been on my toes, at least until Paige's _doppelganger _ had crossed my line of vision once too often. I wouldn't be able to prove it but could confidently assume that I'd probably been observed since the Russians had realised I'd taken their bait. On top of that, they had no doubt realised by now that we had been digging into their present and past, no matter how careful our geeks had been (and they had been: they were some of the best in the world and a couple of them had prison records to prove it – the girl had been caught deep inside our own mainframe before we offered her a job), which would have ensured their continued interest.

Inside the elevator I shrugged internally. There were bigger things to worry about than being followed to and from work. In fact, I almost felt sorry for the tails because I must have been boring them to death with my routine. Yesterday had been the busiest day I'd had and presumably they had been expecting most, if not all, of those trips. Otherwise, they would have got to the point where they could set their watches by whichever direction I was headed.

Finally reaching my room I tossed the laptop onto the desk, dumped jacket, tie and shoes, poured a quick vodka tonic and went outside on the balcony to consider my evening. After deciding it was too chilly to go for a walk I decided I'd better go pack my bag for tomorrow, have some dinner and then get back to practicing my Russian, so that's exactly what I did. Going through the data dumps I also went through another couple of drinks and found a few more nuggets buried in the depths that may have explained a few things.

I'd been wondering why Ilya had never done anything about Levrov after Elena's false arrest but a couple of the records Tallulah and Brontee had come up with may have explained that. Despite being the same rank and carrying the same amount of clout within their individual branches, at the time it seemed that Levrov had more influence as his records showed that he had been a protégée of Viktor Chebrikov, who had been the head of the KGB from late 1982 to late 1988. In addition, he had also been something of a favourite of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, no doubt due to his involvement in doing their dirty work. Combine that and I could understand why Ilya had trodden carefully at the time. Later, of course, the tables had completely and utterly turned against Levrov and towards Gavrik, especially once Putin had been appointed Director of the FSB in 1998 by another one of his mentors, Boris Yeltsin and, not long afterwards, had replaced him as President of Russia. Ilya had officially left the service in that messy period between the official dismantling of the KGB in 1991 and the final rebranding of its successor, the FSK, as the FSB under Yeltsin in early 1995, having managed to steer clear of those involved in the abortive _putsch_ against Gorbachev, expanding into a business mogul and oligarch at the same time as others were doing the same; by the time things had started to settle down and he may have considered dealing with Levrov (I knew Ilya: I knew he had a damned long memory and, with the exception of his wife, was never inclined to forgive and forget) his former mentee had attained his iron grip on the ultimate power position in the country and presumably Ilya thought that Levrov was a spent force.

All of which brought me to the Prime Minister himself and how he might be involved. At arms length, but involved he was, of that I was sure. Apart from the personal relationship with Ilya dating back over a quarter century, there also seemed to be considerable circumstantial evidence of his targeting of Levrov, presumably due to the unknown toe-treading event or events of his early career. There was almost nothing on that but what there was appeared to suggest that Levrov may, at the very least, have had a hand in stone-walling Putin's career advancement in counter-intelligence during the eighties. During the nineties he had started taking his revenge, particularly once he had begun to gain political influence, even before taking control of the FSB or becoming President. He had used his time in both St Petersburg and Moscow to gather information on the rising oligarchs and wasn't afraid of using it to his own ends once he assumed Presidential power. In the case of Levrov, that appeared to have included playing a cat-and-mouse game of letting Levrov start to get some success in his various ventures before slapping him down again for years.

I kept flicking between files, more out of interest than anything, and started to build up a picture. Both Levrov and Zykov had been implicated on the periphery of the 1991 _putsch, _being booted out of the Service when it was closed down thereafter. They had reappeared a year or two later with the security consultancy that had grown rapidly and then mysteriously lost support among the rising oligarchs who were his major clients; after that had come the second version of the consultancy, this one with a tasty government contract that had been doing very nicely until Putin, by now running the FSB, had cancelled the contract, forcing them off-shore, to the Gulf states. It hadn't ended there, though. In the Gulf, Levrov and Zykov had quickly got involved in the supply of Russian-made military hardware and armaments and, judging by even the official company financial records, had rapidly made a small fortune. Then, in 2003, the Russian government had stepped in and forcibly halted the trade and it was after that that the company had been wound up and Levrov retired, only to start up RussiaFirst.

Why hadn't Putin permanently put Levrov out of sight? Probably because of that list of formidable supporters and it was no longer quite as easy as it had been in the old days to do away with enemies, even if you were the President of the new Russia. So he was following the old saw of keeping his friends close, but his enemies closer. And, undoubtedly, giving RussiaFirst enough rope so that he could justifiably hang them when he felt the time was right. It helped to have your political opponents out in the open, after all.

It was getting late by this stage but my mind was still racing so I poured another vodka and went back out on the balcony, letting the cold air blow away the fog. Something I had seen earlier, on one of the archived web sites belonging to RussiaFirst, popped into my mind: among the usual diatribes had been one aimed at the Government in general and Putin in particular, the gist being that he was selling out to the West and would have to be stopped.

And, with that thought, it all fell into place.

I wasn't feeling the cold any more and I wasn't really seeing the scenery, either. Instead, I was seeing a picture that was much larger than any of us on the chess-board had even guessed. Max Witt had been used to get Hal back into the picture and Sasha had been used to keep him there. My role had been to divert his attention from Elena's part in the game and thereby identifying the truth, and that game had been to use all of us to destroy the partnership. But not just for the sake of the destruction itself. When they had failed in getting Ilya to walk and it had become clear that nothing was going to divert him they had changed tack, drawing all of us further out but now they were going after their larger target: the Russian government itself. If they could make the partnership fail it would reflect badly back in Moscow on Ilya, as a prominent member of Putin's cabinet but even if it succeeded it could be used as proof of their selling out to the evil corruption of the West. Either way, it would give them a platform to discredit Ilya, Putin and his entire government. And there was an election scheduled in March of next year. Combined with the disaffection that was already growing with the Putin/Medvedev duopoly inside Russia itself, this might well be enough to tip the duopoly out and replace it with ultranationalists.

The target, therefore, wasn't the partnership _per se. _It was Vladimir Putin. Stripped to its most basic element, this was about Levrov taking revenge on Putin at a personal level and probably nothing really to do with politics. Another one of those chills settled on me as I realised that, now being set on his course, Levrov wouldn't stop here. No matter whether the deal was signed or not, I could see him and his cronies taking further steps, between now and next March, to discredit Putin and bring down the government. Just how far he might be tempted to go I didn't want to consider but thoughts of staged terrorist attacks crossed my mind, either inside Russia or outside, aimed at somehow implicating the government in the worst possible way.

I hadn't thought my stomach had any flexibility left to tie itself into any more knots but, at that prospect, it did. Tossing down the last of my drink, I headed back inside and threw a few notes together on the laptop about my suspicions. Damn this trip tomorrow. I really needed to sit down with Hal and take him through all of this, force him to see the truth, and maybe, God help us, even involve the FSB to try to counter RussiaFirst, before they got completely out of hand. He wouldn't like it but I was pretty sure that, once I'd convinced him of his lack of biological involvement in Sasha, he'd come around fairly quickly. Our Cold War prejudices would ensure that. All I had to do was get the next two days out of the way and I wouldn't wait for him to come after me, I'd go after him.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: These are the last two instalments of this story so I would like to thank all my readers and reviewers who have stuck with me all the way through. Your support and feedback has been invaluable. Thank you.**

**10. The last day. London. Late May 2011.**

If I'd expected to have a quiet morning I didn't get it. Tallulah was on the phone before seven, reporting that Hal had been followed from his home to a meeting at Greenwich again, only this time it was with Sasha Gavrik. Hal hadn't gotten out of the car and the meeting had been short before Gavrik had walked off and Harry had headed on to Thames House. I shook my head but stayed mostly silent – there wasn't much to say and, after last night, I was convinced that neither Hal nor Sasha had the faintest idea of what was really going on. Like me, they were just pawns, being moved around in not-very-blissful ignorance. Whatever they were up to, they would have to be quick if they were planning to include me because I'd be off to The Hague in two hours. I decided to worry about it tomorrow afternoon when I got back.

Those two hours went ridiculously quickly. I didn't hear any more from any of the teams so assumed the main players were all still lying low in their various bases so, when I got the phone call from reception saying that my car had arrived I was ready to go. Wanting to give my brain a rest, I'd locked the laptop in the safe and was only taking an overnight bag so I grabbed it and headed down to Reception. My phone chirped that I had a message but I left it where it was, intending to deal with it once I was on my way to the airport. The place was as busy as it usually was at that hour of the morning, with people checking out and organising their day, including a young woman with a cascade of dark hair standing in the corridor with a phone to her ear just as I reached the foyer. She turned away as I passed, the movement catching my attention, and for some reason I thought there was something slightly familiar about her but didn't have time to consider it – no doubt she'd been staying in the hotel for a while and I'd seen her before. Excusing myself, I leaned between a couple of people already there and handed my key over, telling the girl behind the desk when I'd be back, and then headed outside to look for the car. As it was a hire car, not a company one, I had no idea what to look for but an impressive silver Audi with tinted windows was parked by the kerb so I made my way towards it just as a tall young man in a suit got out of the driver's seat and approached.

"Mr Francis?"

"Yes." Definitely my car, then. The youngster took my bag and put it in the trunk, for which I thanked him, and then shepherded me around to the passenger's side in the back. It was weird, but I had a feeling I had seen his face somewhere before as well. Maybe I was starting to get as paranoid as Hal. And, speak of the Devil… I got in and realised, too late, that there was already someone in the back, seated behind the driver. Harry. Going through a file of photographs and looking for all the world as though he was expecting me. It looked like he was acting on his threat, right at the moment when I didn't need it. Exasperated more than anything else I asked, futilely,

"What the Hell is this?"

"Morning, Jim," what his reply, perfectly polite and unassuming as he looked across at me, following up with a mild, "You leaving the country?"

Oh, so that was why he was here. He'd found out about the trip and interpreted it the wrong way, so there was no harm in telling him the truth.

"Yes, I'm going to The Hague." Someone else squeezed in to the seat beside me and I turned to see the young woman who had been on the phone. Well, well, glamour-puss Erin Watts herself. That was where I knew her from: the footage from the night of the reception and the attempted hit on Ilya. _Shit. _He really was serious, then. I could probably assume, then, that the 'chauffeur', who was just getting into the front, was probably the young man who'd taken the bullet from Collison, which would explain why he had looked faintly familiar, as well. I finally looked back at Hal and said, bluntly, "Oh, you have _got _to be kidding."

Harry didn't even blink.

"I'm afraid you might have to postpone your mini-break." If we hadn't been in the position we were in I might have appreciated his mild irony but not today. He handed the file over and I opened it up and started looking through it. The contents were photos, of Veronica Duran. _Christ, they've made the connection._ The car started up and we moved off. I shut the file and sat back; no-one else was saying anything so I was damned if I was going to start. Besides, I needed time to think about how I was going to approach this so I stared straight ahead, out through the windscreen, aware of Hal, imperturbable, doing the same thing out of the window on his side and glamour-puss, exuding a slight air of nervousness, flicking her glance between me, the young man in the front and out the window on her side. Well, I suppose this was the first time she had kidnapped a CIA Deputy Director so she was probably entitled to be nervous.

The trip was a short one and we ended up driving down to the entry of an underground car park in an empty building towards the river. Presumably an MI5 safe house. There was no point looking around to see if I could spot Tallulah or one of her team, as we were down the bottom of a concrete drive, but, as we got out and began to walk towards the entrance, I thought I heard, very faintly, the sound of a motor-bike somewhere behind us. All I could do was hope it was Tallulah and not someone else. I suspected that's what the message sitting on my phone was probably about – she had realised what was happening when she had tailed him to my hotel – but it was too late to check the phone now and I didn't want to set Hal off before I had to so I just silently followed him into the car park, the other pair behind us. As usual for such facilities, it was dark and damp but Harry obviously knew where he was going as he didn't break stride as we headed into the gloom. It didn't last long, anyway: someone flicked a switch and a series of harsh, fluorescent lights flickered on, just as Hal's phone rang.

"Ruth."

Miss Evershed. The last Tallulah had heard, as of the other day that lady had left Five and was now working for the Home Secretary as some sort of security advisor. Obviously, though, she was still in contact with her old boss. Although I could only hear one side of the conversation it was fairly obvious what it was about.

"By your tone I'd say you already know." Someone knew what he was doing. He still didn't break stride as she said something else and his reply matter-of-fact.

"I'll take the consequences if I'm wrong."

Whatever she said next it didn't go down well. His face hardened and an expression of either annoyance or frustration – I couldn't quite see – registered briefly before he said,

"I have to go."

Whatever she said next caused him to pause for a moment before his impassiveness returned.

"So be it."

He hung up and I couldn't resist having a dig, although I was surprised at how weary I sounded.

"Whoever that was, Hal, you should have listened to them."

He didn't react, of course, just kept walking, and we ended up in a couple of empty offices off to one side of the car-park, all polished concrete floors, glass-brick walls, big columns and more fluoro lights in a shiny ceiling. Very post-modernist but totally empty of anything apart from two plastic chairs. I refused to even pretend to be intimidated by any of this so I gave Hal a withering look and sat myself in one of the chairs, flicking through the photos of Veronica – clearly from CCTV and mostly of her carrying the briefcase – and, one by one, dropping them on the floor. When no-one volunteered to start the conversation I decided to do it myself, letting my frustration come through as I leaned forward and clasped my hands together for a moment.

"You Brits." I straightened up and looked at the young man, who had me fixed with an attempt at a basilisk stare. "Who do you think formulates CIA policy, Scooby-Doo? The only reason we give a rat's ass about your country is because you let it be a breeding ground for fanatics. Are we happy that you're cuddling up to the Russians? No, it's one more foot-hold in Europe for them but if we wanted to stop you, we wouldn't have resort to scare tactics to do it. That includes taking out your office boy."

To give him his due, the young man – Levendis, that was his name – didn't flinch under the onslaught. He stared straight back at me and said, evenly,

"Tariq was a bit more than that."

I continued staring at him and said, insincerely, hoping to provoke a reaction,

"No offence."

"Some taken."

The staring match continued until Hal's voice, soft, came from behind me.

"So you don't know this woman."

Veronica. He knew, otherwise he wouldn't have turned up with the photos, but I wasn't going to give in that easily.

"No."

I could hear his footsteps as he walked forward and finally into my view, going to stand with Levendis. He continued to talk, in that deceptively soft voice.

"Do you often solicit girls from parked cars?"

Ah, so we had got straight to the heart of the matter. _Well, Hal, old buddy, game on_. I knew I'd been set up but he still didn't know that he had been, just as comprehensively. Transferring my stare from Levendis to him I asked, equally softly,

"Is that a trick question?" Eyes locked, we continued the game for a moment before I decided to cut the tension so I dropped my eyes for a moment and then back, offering an opportunity to move on. "I will speak to you, alone."

I thought I saw a flicker of something in his eyes, something that might have been doubt, as he made the slightest acknowledgement and sent the other pair into the outer room. Once they had gone I gazed at the photos scattered on the floor and started to speak, carefully and selectively, but nonetheless truthfully.

"Alright. I'm acquainted with this woman." I looked up at Hal but couldn't read his expression so continued on. "She's not CIA, she's a private contractor, Israeli-trained." It was partly true but I still wasn't sure how far he'd got in identifying her so I wasn't going to hand it all to him on a plate. "_Nom de guerre _is Veronica Duran."

The name got no reaction. They hadn't got that far, then and perhaps she had been telling the truth when she said her time at Six had been spent under an assumed identity. He sat down in the chair opposite and fixed me with that impassive gaze but I thought he looked more than tired. If I hadn't been getting much sleep lately, how much less had he?

"What's your business with her?"

_You can fish, Hal, but you won't get me admitting that I had anything to do about her recent activities because I didn't. Which I'm sure you damned-well know._ It wouldn't hurt for me to continue treading a fine line with the truth, though. I can fish as well as he can.

"We use Duran for deniable ops in the UK. That's why I was in a meeting with her. Now you think she's connected to this other stuff?" He hadn't had to tell me, we both knew why we were here. "That's a matter of concern for both of us."

He wasn't buying it. Wrapped in his own surreal world of guilt, shame, paranoia and mistrust, it wasn't going to be easy to get through to him, judging by his response. Giving me a withering look he asked,

"Don't you ever get tired of lying, Jim?" and got up out of the chair, starting to pace. I was going to have to tread very carefully here if I wanted him to stay in control enough to be able to get through to him so I responded with a puzzled,

"What?"

That burning, obsidian anger was still there and it was starting to show as he loomed over me and his words gave away that he had no idea at all of what was really afoot. He'd swallowed the lies hook, line and sinker, just as he had all those years ago and now I wasn't sure what it was going to cost him to have to face the truth.

"Two days ago Elena contacted you. She arranged to meet you. You turn up near the meeting point, this woman—" he pointed down at the photos "—approaches your car. You talk. Straight after you leave, she attempts to kill Elena."

He was out of control again, just as he had been in Berlin in 1984, and, like then, I had to try to control it before he did something stupid. Again.

"Now whoa, whoa, whoa, it was Duran, she fixed up the meeting place, she had information for me, she told me and I left." Well, after a fashion. Elena had rung her, not me, and organised to get me there but I knew that coming out with that would achieve nothing right now so I prevaricated. Hal had turned away and resumed his pacing and I could see the tension and frustration rising in him faster than they were in me. "Are you telling me after that she tried to kill Elena Gavrik?"

Harry rarely genuinely lost his temper, no matter what the provocation: he pretended to, when it suited him, but this time he wasn't pretending, turning on me and yelling,

"I don't believe you!" before walking away again, momentarily putting his hand to his forehead. I knew that gesture. It meant he was getting close to breaking point and for a moment I felt sorry for him, for all the anguish that red-haired spawn of Satan had visited on him for the last thirty years. However much I might have disliked it, though, I realised I had to use the moment to get us closer to the truth, for his sake as much as mine.

"God damn it, Harry, if that's true it's got to be a set up. What have I done to earn your distrust?" He wouldn't look at me, just continued that caged-tiger pacing. "I lie when I have to. But I consider you a friend. And, you remember, I have sat on everything I know about you and Elena Gavrik for thirty years. In our business that practically makes me a saint."

That stopped him for a moment and I got an icy,

"I think that's the least you could do," was the answer I got. _Oh, don't tell me, Hal, you don't __**still**__ harbour a grudge over Treptower Park? I thought we'd sorted that out decades ago…_

"Oh. Oh, I see. You still blame me for that, huh?" I sat back in the seat and glared my disbelief at him. No wonder she had found it so easy to turn him to her ends, between his guilt over Sasha's existence and his failure to extract her and the boy, which he was apparently still choosing to blame on me, despite what I'd thought. No, I wouldn't accept that. We _had _been fine for years, until she reappeared to poison the well yet again. Feeling deflated and ready to walk away, I just looked at him and said, unable to completely disguise the sadness, "Well, you believe what you need to believe, Harry."

For some reason that seemed to have got through because he stopped prowling and walked back towards me.

"What's that supposed to mean? We lied to her and then we left her to rot." The anger and self-righteousness was still there but it was fading, fast, and there was a degree of doubt and confusion in his eyes. Weary of it all and longing to be out I was blunt as I threw a few home-truths at him.

"Yeah, you see I can't feel guilty about that. Lying is how we turn people, that's what we do." We stared at each other silently and I could see that I was starting to get through to him. There was no way he could deny the truth of those words, he was more of a master at judicious lying than almost anyone I had met. Apart from myself, of course, and Elena left us both at the starting gates on that front. Neither of had got where we were by being Mr Nice-Guy, and neither had she. At least we did it on behalf of our countries. But, I supposed, that was exactly what Elena probably thought of her own actions. Softly, cynically, I went on, "'falling in love_' _with them, that's the Cardinal Sin."

It was below the belt but it worked. He was in no position to deny that, either, although we both knew it wasn't entirely the truth but it was what he had told himself at the time and tried to sell to me so he had nowhere to go now but to start facing up to it all. Waves of guilt and depression flowed across his face and bearing and I knew I almost had him where I needed him. Maybe now, we could _really _start to talk and we might find a way out of this unholy mess yet. The door to the outer room slammed shut as Levendis walked in, shattering my thoughts.

"Harry, we've got a problem."

He gestured towards the outer room and, without a further word to me, they both left, the heavy door swinging shut behind them with the same emphatic bang. I really, _really _hoped this wasn't Tallulah coming to the rescue, I'd _told_ her to watch and wait…

All I could hear through the door was muffled voices but no words. None female, by the tones so it wasn't Tallulah herself, at least. The door suddenly swung open again and glamour-puss walked in.

"Mr Coaver." Her tones were clipped and impersonal as she gestured for me to get up and leave. I took my time complying and straightened my jacket as I headed towards the exit. Glamour-puss held the door open for me and we returned to the outer room to join the rest. Hal, his young side-kick, and three of my side, by the looks of it, although I didn't recognise a single one of them.

"Well, the Cavalry's here, huh?" I studied them as I moved to join them, flicking pointed glances at the guns held in the hands of two men standing at the back. They didn't get the message and lower them, though. The third member of the rescue team – tall, built like an ex-football player, ex military, by the bearing – asked as I approached,

"Are you alright, Sir?"

"Yeah." I continued to study him as I got closer, glamour-puss still at my heels, unable to find anything even faintly familiar about him. "You are?"

"Glenn, Sir. Special Activities Division."

Ah. That probably explained why I didn't know him. That bunch never made themselves known to anyone unless they had to. Although getting them involved seemed like a bit of overkill on Tallulah's behalf

"S.A.D., huh? Well, that makes me feel important." I looked him up and down, thinking he was taking things a little too seriously and that I'd have a gentle word in his ear later about busting in on meetings in foreign countries while waving weapons about, before adding "Alright, Agent Glenn, at ease." Turning around I could see Hal, who was standing, head down and staring at the floor, behind me and then tried to catch the eyes of the others as well. "Maybe this situation isn't as bad as it seems."

The atmosphere was tense but my attempt at defusing it didn't seem to help as Glenn insisted on following out his orders.

"That may be, Sir, but I have orders to get you back to the Embassy, safely. Pearce is now regarded as a rogue officer."

I winced internally at the lack of respect inherent in the tone and added that to the 'for discussion later' list but what he said didn't surprise me. It sounded just like the sort of stupid decision some of our people were inclined to take. I turned again to look at Hal and replied,

"Fine. So let's go." As Glenn turned away, towards the outer door, I added, desperately hoping he was listening, "This was a pretty dumb move, Harry. I'll smooth things over, then we'll figure this mess out. Together."

He's not saying anything but he's watching, impassive apart from the flicker of what I hope is understanding in his eyes, as I turn away and start the long walk back out into the open. Glenn's in front – another slight breach of protocol but I don't care, I've got other things to think about – with the other pair behind as we head back up the drive. None of them are saying anything but that suits me because my mind is full of what just happened and wondering how exactly I am I going to approach the whole thing with Hal. Straight up is probably the best bet. Checking my watch as we approach the exit I realise that I've well and truly missed my plane so I'll get Glenn to stop off at the hotel on the way back to Grosvenor Square and pick up the laptop then, if no-one re-schedules the meetings with the Eurocrats, I might just force Harry into a meeting today because my gut is telling me that we don't have long left before Levrov and Elena start getting desperate.

We're squeezing past the Audi but I still can't see out car because there's a blue Citroen van parked in the way. _That's odd, this building looks like it's empty so why—what the Hell?_ It's all happening so fast, the van doors are open and the two goons behind me are trying to get me in but they'll have to try a bit harder than that. A curse – _not English, these aren't our guys _– gives me some satisfaction as my foot connects with somewhere soft and sensitive and I use the momentum of the other idiot pulling me towards the van to swing around and land a punch but now Glenn – _or whoever the Hell he is - _ is bringing his weight to bear and the fourth man from the van is on the ground as well and they combine to throw me in, Glenn and the one I'd kicked joining me, aiming a savage kick of his own at my ribs.

_Ah, shit, that didn't take long_. The van starts up and accelerates up the drive and out onto the street, hurling me into a corner and making the other pair hang on so they don't end up on top of me. At least it should hold them off from taking any more swings at me for the moment so I'd better start thinking and watching, waiting for my opportunity. I've been in worse positions than this and got away but right now I'm happy that Tallulah or one of the gang is out there and raising Hell right now. This lot don't know what demons they've just unleashed. They're ignoring me, still hanging on as the van twists and turns in the traffic. Some words get exchanged, again not in English, what damned language is it? Something Slavic, by the sounds of it. Not Russian. Croatian? Serbian? Somewhere around there. More of Veronica's friends, probably, or her buddy Hamet Fasli's. That must have been how they knew where I was – they were still following me and panicked when they saw me disappear with Hal and now here we are. And they must know we've been digging around in their files so I'm guessing I might be in a little bit of trouble.

From somewhere outside there's a squeal of brakes and a thump but then it's gone and we're picking up speed. The van is now being thrown around in a way guaranteed to draw attention so I presume the real Cavalry are on our tail now so I'd better be ready to act when I get a chance. More corners; Glenn is on the phone, sounds like he's giving orders—that was a gun shot, what the Hell is going on? The other pair are moving, hauling me to my feet. _ What the fuck?_ Another punch, they're opening the doors, _**no**__—_

"You sons of bitches—"

The world turns, blurring buildings, vehicles, rain, a sudden stop, rolling but no pain yet. More tyres are squealing but I can't breathe and I can't see straight. Someone's running towards me and there's a female voice but I can't understand it. It's so cold, so cold and now everything's starting to hurt. What am I doing on the road? The road's wet but it's warm and sticky under my cheek. This isn't good, isn't good—

Someone is kneeling next to me and another voice, male, asks,

"Jim?"

I snap back. It's Harry, not one of us, but Hal. I have to tell him but all that comes out is a groan. "You keep still," he's saying. "There's an ambulance on its way." Humour's always saved us in the past so I can't resist the temptation.

"Why, do you think I need one?" I can't help laughing but it comes out weak as a kitten. The pain is incredible now and I want to throw up and I know the hot stickiness under my head is blood because I can see it now. I have to tell him. "Harry. Listen." I manage to turn my head a little and can just about focus on him but liquid is filling my throat so I cough – more blood – before continuing, every word burning, "In my hotel room." More liquid, I'll swallow it this time, Jesus Christ my head hurts and it's **so **cold, I can't feel my legs—_concentrate_! I can't focus on that familiar face any more and let my head roll back to the side, back into the sticky wetness mixing with the rain. "On my laptop. There's a file." Damn this blood in my throat! Spit it out again. "Get to it. Before someone else does." Elena. He must know by now I mean Elena. He's talking again, soft, gentle.

"What's on it, Jim?"

Don't have time to tell him. He'll find it and then he'll know all, too. And he's Hal, he will deal with it. Especially once he finds out the truth about Sasha. Another cough – now even my lungs are hurting and I can't breathe again. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and then try to focus on that face I've known for 32 years. I have to tell him, I have to know. Another burning, suffocating breath.

"Harry. I would never have done it, you know." More coughing, I can't stop it. He's watching me, a hand on my shoulder and eyes intense, slightly puzzled.

"What?"

That's odd. The pain is fading now. Sounds are getting muffled and everything is disappearing into the fog that's rolling in around us. Maybe it'll be alright after all. But he still has to know, so we can talk about it later.

"In Berlin." I shake my head and the pain comes back for a moment. "I would never have shot you, you know that, don't you?"

His eyes are full of understanding, compassion, what might be love and grief and, at the back, a flickering flame of anger. But not anger at me, I can see that at least. He's not angry with me any more. Then he fades away again with a nod and I can just hear him, acknowledging the truth.

"I know that, Jim."

Thank God. I can relax now.


	11. Chapter 11

** D**

**JUNE 2011.**

**FINAL REPORT INTO THE MURDER OF DEPUTY DIRECTOR JAMES JEFFREY COAVER**

**DISTRIBUTION: DCIA CC: POTUS**

** DNI SOS**

** DCIA UK HS UK**

** MID RUSSIA**

_**EXECUTIVE SUMMARY**_

Deputy Director James Jeffrey Coaver died while undertaking operational duties in London in May 2011. The Preliminary Report (attached – Appendix 1) details the events surrounding his murder as far as they were known at the time of writing. This report provides the final analysis of the crime and its perpetrators.

Initial suspicion fell on Sir Harry Pearce, Head of Counter-Intelligence for MI-5, as Director Coaver had been kidnapped by Sir Harry and members of his immediate team and taken for questioning to an MI-5 safe house. Agent Tallulah Zanon had been monitoring the situation and sent a message, which was only partially received, requesting assistance as Director Coaver had been removed from the safe house by force. An extraction team under Agent Defoe, on his first foreign assignment, was sent but found only the MI-5 personnel. A pursuit of the vehicle involved in the removal was instigated by both parties which resulted in Director Coaver's death as detailed in Appendix 1. Poor communication between both parties and Agent Defoe's inexperience saw MI-5 incorrectly implicated for Director Coaver's death so a request for the extradition of Sir Harry Pearce was put to the British Home Secretary and, after pressure was applied at the highest levels, granted. Sir Harry was being transported to the airfield at Welford when he was extracted by members of his staff.

The events of the following 12 hours are detailed in Appendix 2. Much of the information was provided by MI-5 after the event, courtesy of Agent Zanon's intervention. Agent Zanon had been knocked off her motor-bike during the pursuit of the van containing Director Coaver and, unknown to us, was in hospital until she discharged herself, against medical advice, late on the afternoon in question. She proceeded immediately to our facilities in Grosvenor Square where, after being informed of Director Coaver's death, she convened a meeting of her team and later formed a deputation, along with Agents Silva, Sorenson and Brandon, to present a _précis _of the operation they had been working on and her conclusions (Appendix 3) to the Director of our UK station. The evidence presented included the recording of a telephone call from Elena Gavrik to Mikhail Levrov regarding the initiation of the contingency plan relating to the passenger aircraft and convinced us that there was insufficient evidence to warrant a further extradition attempt on Sir Harry Pearce and to instead focus our attention on RussiaFirst.

Upon due consideration of the evidence and after recovery of Director Coaver's encrypted back-up files from the international server, permission was granted the following week for Agent Zanon to approach MI-5 for a follow-up operation. The Home Secretary facilitated the first meeting with Sir Harry Pearce, where a full and frank exchange of information and ideas occurred and a joint operation was launched to achieve a final resolution in dealing with the group behind the murder of Director Coaver and those of several others, including two members of Sir Harry's immediate staff. Shortly thereafter, a representative of the Russian government came on board to make it a tripartite operation.. As a result of, or in conjunction with, the joint operation the following outcomes have been achieved:

The three men masquerading as CIA agents who kidnapped and killed Director Coaver had been identified by MI-5 and two of the three had been arrested early. The third, the leader who called himself Agent Glenn, was a Moldovan named Rustam Illescu who was a US citizen and was well-known to the branch of our organisation dealing with South and Central American drug cartels. He was tracked to Algeria where he was extracted by force and returned to US soil where he is currently assisting with enquiries.

The RussiaFirst agent on the airplane, Pavel Zykov, was arrested by the British police when the plane landed at Heathrow. When he has finished co-operating with their investigation and MI5 he will be returned to FSB custody in Moscow.

Veronica Duran had escaped Britain on the day of Director Coaver's death. She was found in Guadaloupe and extracted two days ago. She is now on US soil and has been loquacious in assisting us.

The remains of Director Coaver's laptop were returned to us from Russia, _via _MI-5. There were some final notes that were not on the back-up drive but nothing else we did not already have.

Yesterday, a decision was taken to launch a joint MI-5/FSB operation to deal with RussiaFirst. We will be providing support.

-o-0-o-

**ADDENDUM**

**JULY 2011**

Confimation was received today from both London and Moscow that Mikhail Levrov has been terminated and all identified associates of RussiaFirst have been cleansed and the party banned by the Russian government. Justice is considered to have been served.

This file is now closed.


End file.
